How To Make Recycled Plastic Earrings & Jewelry w/ Tabitha Ott

In episode 02 of the No Niche series, I join forces with artist Tabitha Ott on how to make recycled plastic earrings for a special someone. She teaches me literally step by step how to create earrings from recycled plastic, and I attempt to do it myself 😬

Tabitha Ott is an artist, teacher, and creator of Fresh Plastic, a collection of wearable art made from brightly colored post-consumer plastic. Learn more about Tabitha & her work here: http://www.tabithaott.com/ | @tabasaurusrex

Whenever I do a No Niche episode, it’s always different coming into someone else’s world. Especially when it has to do with creating physical products or handyman things (like the last two episodes). I consider myself the opposite of a handyman so I really enjoy pushing myself to the limit and broadening my ever growing horizons.

Coming into Tabitha’s world was so interesting. She was extremely inviting and her teaching skills made everything feel so DOABLE, step by step. Let’s break down what we did to go from Duke’s mayonnaise jar to beautiful earrings.

STEP 1: Choosing Your Plastic

Because my favorite color is BLUE, we went with the blue options in the room which were a Duke’s Mayonaise lid and the lid to a gogo squeeze yogurt pouch. So crazy! We chose these because of the shapes and shades of blue looked really good together.

I was feeling oval that day so Tabitha showed me her shape templates for us to trace our shapes out on the Duke’s lid. After tracing our ovals, it was time to cut ✂️

STEP 2: Cutting Out Earrings & Smoothing Edges

Tabitha had so many unique and particular tools to get the job done. We used a mini saw to cut out our ovals and the pieces of the gogo squeeze that we wanted to use. Be careful when cutting them out aka stay in the lines. 🤦

I messed up once. Whoops.

After cutting out your shapes, you’ve got to SMOOTH the edges. Tabitha uses the nifty little wooden clamp and sharpening tool. Which I don’t remember the names too :).

It took a second to get going, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty simple. Don’t forget to sandpaper the edges as well!

STEP 3: Drill & Rings

Once all the pieces are smoothed out, you have to drill little holes to connect the two pieces together. Tabitha had the coolest mini drill that makes it a breeze. Just remember what she told me. “Be careful because it IS a power tool.”

The ring is made out of 18 gauge stainless steel that you wrap around a dowel rod. Then, you have to use a saw to CUT it right down the middle!

STEP 4: Shine & Glue

After dropping the rings into soapy water for shine, it’s time to piece together and GLUE. Be careful with the glue here so it doesn’t get everywhere.

Of course, this is missing the minute details and Tabitha’s art & skills, BUT tune into the video to really see what she does to make the finished product something you can wear daily!!

Learn more about Tabitha here.