Drinking Cup Jewelry

Now that crafting people have discovered so many new things that can be used for making jewelry, like metal washers, drawer pulls, and even colored pencils, it might be true that local craft stores are losing sales in the jewelry-making department. When you use things you already have, you not only save money, but you end up with more interesting jewelry. Instead of beads, baubles, buttons, and such, look to your disposable drinking glasses as a source of jewelry-making supplies. They can be cut to create adorable shapes you'll love as charms. Wear the charms on necklaces, bracelets, shoes, and more.

Use a die cut, or even scissors, to cut the shapes you want for the charms. You can draw on the cup with stencils, or just cut simplistic shapes, like squares or triangles. With stencils, you can create more elaborate designs, like lighthouses, puppies, or even letters.

Cut out each shape from the glass then pierce it with a hot nail or needle. Hold the nail or needle with pliers, heat it, then push it through the top area of the shape. This instantly turns a mere piece of plastic into a cute charm.

There are so many different jewelry pieces you can create just by how you gather the shapes, and how you embellish them. Cut three different sizes of a shape, like a star, and gather them together as one charm. Just open up a single chain link, slide the stars on, slide the link through a necklace or bracelet link, then clamp it shut. Or, cut each charm to be separate, and each one a different shape.

Although the colorful plastic shapes look great on their own - with vibrant shades of red, blue, and others - they look even nicer when you give them interesting accents. You can paint them, attach stickers to them, glue on things like rhinestones or wooden shapes, or even use rubber stamps on them.

Cut the drinking glass shapes into one-by-one-inch squares and you can make a fun tile bracelet. Use stickers - or even a marker - to put a letter on each tile, then hang them all on a charm bracelet.

Make an entirely different type of tile bracelet by gluing a tiny picture to each square. With this technique, you can make a bracelet with a beach theme, a Native American theme, or even a fairy princess theme.

There are no limits to the different charms, necklaces, and bracelets you can make when you cut up plastic drinking glasses. To find them in unusual patterns and colors go online and buy from a party supply store.