100% recycled plastic beads – fun & quick jewellery examples

We’re really excited to start stocking these beautiful 100% recycled plastic beads. Available both in our Nottingham Bead Shop and online on our website. We really love them, not only do they make use of otherwise discarded plastic (they’re all made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic). But also the use of different plastics together have created some gorgeous marbled and swirling effects. If you check out the product pages you’ll see what waste plastics have been used to create each colour blend.

We have 2 shapes in the range. A larger donut bead measuring 14mm x 7.5mm which have a 3mm hole (above). And a 6mm barrel shaped bead measuring 6mm x 6mm with a 1.8mm hole. You can see it below, in one of our favourite colours.

Jewellery Making – with Recycled plastic beads

Obviously we had to have a play with the beads. They work really well in playful designs like the necklace Angela made. With the larger beads simply strung on to a silkies cord with pony beads as spacers. Or the chunky 14mm beads hung on sterling loops. All the different swirling colours create a lovely muted rainbow too. We’ve added extra details about the pieces below.

Simple earrings

Some of the most effective designs are often the simplest. If I want to show off or highlight the colour of a bead, I make the bead the main attraction. These chunky Smoke on the Water beads are the perfect example. Simply threaded onto 20mm sterling silver hoops. You can really see the lovely swirly patterns in the bead. For a smaller pair, the 6mm Solar Flare beads threaded on a headpin to hang from the 15mm Vermeil hoops worked really well too. I added a size 11 seed bead either side of the bead to help with spacing on the headpin too. These Stainless Steel hoops were fun to thread up too. Combining the 6mm blue galaxy plastic beads with size 5 haematite seed beads.

Elegant Earrings

I love how Angela has combined different materials and textures to create these elegant earrings with a great depth of colour.

Angela has threaded on to a short length of Beadalon flexible wire (1 of each in this order);
4mm Siam crystal bicone
opaque black size 8 seed bead
5mm Siam crystal bicone
6mm black ice recycled plastic bead
8mm Bordeaux rubberised acrylic beads
6mm Siam crystal bicone
14mm black ice recycled plastic bead.
Now working back to mirror the first side;
6mm Siam crystal bicone
8mm Bordeaux rubberised acrylic beads
6mm black ice recycled plastic bead
5mm Siam crystal bicone
opaque black size 8 seed bead
4mm Siam crystal bicone
The ends of the wires were gathered together into a black plated necklace end. The ends are held in place with a crimp bead and the necklace end closed. To finish a black jump ring was used to attach the drop to a black plated earwire.

Quick and Fun

These last few quick items are great for adding a splash of colour. The elasticated bracelet forms a muted rainbow of colours. Using the 6mm barrel shaped recycled plastic beads alternated with size 8 haematite seed beads. In a similar style on a larger scale; the Tropical Whirlpool 14mm donut beads alternating with light blue plastic pony beads on a silkies cord is the perfect quick make.

The braided friendship bracelet is simpler than it appears too. 3 x 50cm lengths of black 1mm cotton cord were knotted together and plaited together for approximately 10cm. Then 10 6mm recycled plastic beads in Nebula were threaded on 1 strand. 10 in Cadbury Swirl on the second strand and 10 Tropical Whirlpool onto the 3rd strand. Continuing with a 3 strand plait I simply slide 1 bead up before crossing threads. Once the threads are crossed the bead stays in place. Carry on plaiting and sliding a bead up before each cross over. Then plait the remaining cord together and it’s finished.

We hope you’ve enjoyed learning a little more about the new 100% recycled plastic beads and have hopefully been inspired. We’d love to see what you make with our new range of beads. Tag us on Social Media @TheBeadShopNottingham or #TheBeadShopNottingham when you share your creations.