the melted bead bowl

[crafty_cool]

that is so cool!

I have loads of pony beads, so when I have time, I willl make one.

[jonnamarco]

Dude!  This is so awesome.. I am so excited about the idea of just melting random plastic stuff.  I would think that the plastic would burn.  But it doesn't seem your stuff burnt.  So excited.....

[megadoomer]

So yesterday, while at work, I saw your project. Guess what the first thing I did once I was off work was? Yep, headed out to good ol' wal-mart and bought the beads. They were only like $2 for about 450 beads. So anyways, here is the result!







The pink/purple one is about 10" across while the rest are small ones, about 3-4" across. I used glass bowls because I had a better variety of shapes, they took about 20 minutes.

Thanks for sharing this project. It was so fun to experiment with!

[tiffie1023]

hell yeah! those are awesome!

[jonnamarco]

Um, just tried this and the smell.... is toxic.  So bad.  Just me?  Do you all live in houses or apartments?  I live in small 1 bedroom apartment.  No where to got to escape the smell............

[apg]

They are all great  I love the big one. Its my Bday next week. i would want it as a gift.  Do the bowls get stuck on to the metal?  I think I will try it but my mother-in-law wont be happy if she sees remnants of plastic in her utensils or the smell of it in her oven. Tell me whatever happened.

  jonnamarco, Is that the smell of melted plastic?? So u cant prolly use these bead bowls for eating nuts and other purposes. Just to keep in ur drawing rooms as decorations.How did u get rid of the smell finally?

[mmd32]

Oh, damn, these are soooo awesome!! I need to buy a bunch of these beads asap!!!

Megadoomer How did you get the points on the edges??

[Camellia_Ruth]

This is soooooo Neat.... I love the colors of your bowls Meg they are very pretty.

I have a HUGE suck fan in my house so I can probably makes these all night while I am alone this weekend. JoY

[jonnamarco]

jonnamarco, Is that the smell of melted plastic?? So u cant prolly use these bead bowls for eating nuts and other purposes. Just to keep in ur drawing rooms as decorations.How did u get rid of the smell finally?

Yeah, it was the smell of melting plastic - I guess.  I guess I have never smelled that smell before.  Anyway, it went away about 10 minutes after I took them out of the oven.  I used a muffin pan, so I could try this whole thing out on a small scale.  Anyway, I think I took them out too early cause they fell apart.  I'll try again though.  I still think they are awesome - even if suck at making them

[tiffie1023]

so i'm still playing with this idea, and i've discovered totally by accident that the longer you leave the beads in the oven, the less lattice like they are.  i have a bowl i made with the 11 mm beads and you can't tell they were ever seperate.  they all fused together into a very solid and not so brittle mass, so expeiriment! also i discovered that the cooking time is different for different metal bowls.

the points on the top of the bowl (be careful they're sharp!) come from the beads sinking down the sides of the bowl as they melt.

if your bowl fall apart, you didn't leave it in long enough.

i've also discovered that plastic like glass sort of expands and constricts with heat, so i've had no problem with anything sticking to my metal bowls.  once the plastic cools, you can just turn the bowl upside down and the beads should just fall out.  if you are having a little trouble, it's possible that the beads haven't cooled enough, so if dunk the whole gig in cool water, it should pop out easily.

i've been making quite a few of these since i made the first orginal post, so if anyone has any other questions, let me know!