Making beads from plastic bottles

[veroni]

this looks fun!!  I really want to try this...

..but I have no heat gun.  where would you get one of those? 

!and!
do you think you could use the same technique, but on those annoying fake credit card things that you receive in the mail?  ...the plastic ones, not the card board ones.. haha. 

[verdilak]

hmm... I saw some heat/embossing guns at Hobby Lobby last week for under $20. And yes... I have used thefake credit cards and they work out well and you get some nice looking beads... specially the see-through AMEX ones heh.

Yes... some do get deformed and whatnot, but if you close up a hole just wait for it to cool, reheat, and poke a hole with something metal. The more heat yoou use the more deformed they become so even if you want to makethem fast... you may want tomake them slowly, waving the gun at them instead of keeping the heat right on them.

[greenjenny]

Holy Cow!  when i replied last night to say how cool these were, it never occured to me that my kids would love it too.  We spent this whole snow day morning coloring and melting these beads!  What fun!!  Thank you again for giving me a happy arguement free snow day!!

[germie]

Hey! That's amazing!  Plus, it's good for the environment, so yay!

[ellie_jo14]

hey! i tried your idea! it worked really well, but all of my beads look kinda deformed..haha
it doesn't really matter
my heat gun kept breaking for no reason, but my dad fixed it for me..haha
i was wondering if it would work if you used sturdier shampoo bodles.

[WildWire]

Kewl beads! Learn something new everyday!

[DancinJules]

Those are soooo cool!  I've done beads like that with shrink plastic, but I like the recycled version more!

If you have a Harbor Freight Tools somewhere nearby, they regularly have heat guns on sale for around ten dollars.  (You can get spiffy ones at the craft store meant specifically for melting embossing powders, but the ones from the hardware store intended for stripping paint and wallpaper work just as well.)

I *think* that anything with a #6 recycling number will work just about the same as shrink plastic.  See here:
http://www.doscience.com/act_archive/home_activities/contracting_containers/index.html

[Hylas]

What a good idea:  Will try.  I don't have a heat gun, either.  I'm trying to think of an alternative.....Wel l, could you just bake them?

[milesapart714]

oooh. i want to try this. thanks for posting it!

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

how many people have tried this? i'm curious as to how long it would take! very neat-o!