Plastic Bottle Hack: Make Easy Gemstones!

Hello people!

In this instructable, I will show you how to turn plastic bottles that you would usually throw away into precious gemstones!

It's a simple project that everyone can do at home - most likely you already have all the materials that you will need. And who wouldn't want gems that cost nothing?

Also, there is no extra waste since you are reusing the bottles. That's why I love upcycling projects - there is no good reason why you shouldn't try it! ;)

You can use the gems for jewelry, costumes, decoration, cards,.. Just use your imagination!

It's lots of fun and I can imagine that kids as well as adults will like this project.

So I hope you enjoy! :)

Step 1: What You Will Need

Materials:

* plastic bottle(who would have thought?): It can be any size and colour, as long as it has the basic flower shaped bottom part. The bigger the bottle, the bigger the gemstone! (see pictures)

* something to paint the gem (like nail polish, metallic markers, acrylic paint,..)

* scissors, and I also recommend nail scissors

* thin cardboard (like from cereal boxes)

* any glue

Step 2: Cut the Basic Shape Out of the Bottle

The first thing you need to do is to cut off one "foot" of a bottle.

It already has a nice oval shape, so you just need to cut around that until you get a more or less symmetrical piece that is oval from above and flat from all sides.

Step 3: Paint the Gemstone

Now it is time to give the gemstone some colour! You can pretty much use any paint, nail polish, metallic markers or glitter to do that.

The easiest way in my opinion is to paint it from the inside. But this only looks good if the plastic has no scratches.

If it has scratches, you can paint it from the outside as well. A nice way to do that is to take some adhesive putty or Play-Doh and put it on the tip of a pencil. Then you can add the plastic piece on top and paint away!

This trick is also uselful for the drying process, since you just need to put the pencil into a pen holder.

You can paint the gemstone in one colour, make a galaxy gem, draw a unicorn on it.. You name it! :)

Step 4: Fill the Gemstone

Now we have something that looks like a gemstone, but it's still hollow and kinda hard to work with.

So just take a tiny bit of newspaper and roll it into a ball. Then cut a piece of cardboard into an oval that fits into the gem.

I also coloured the edges of the cardboard purple because the white didn't look that nice. But that's just a detail.

Glue the ball of newspaper into the gem, then the piece of cardboard, and your gemstone has a flat side that you can glue to any surface!

I hope you liked this upcycling idea and stay creative ;)

Randomona