Melted Bead Suncatcher tutorial.....Melting Beads.....it's oh so fun!

If you have girls you probably have a huge collection of various plastic beads. At some point your girls will probably out grow the desire to string endless strands of pony bead necklaces and you will be left wondering.......What do I do with all these left over beads?

I have the answer for you.........

You melt them!

By doing a little web surfing I found out that you can transform plastic beads into bowls, sun catchers, lamp shapes, night lights, jewelry and cool Christmas ornaments!

For our first melted bead projects we made a few sun catchers.

Here is what I did.

1. First, decide on a shape you want your sun catcher to be. I used some light weight disposable Reynolds molds that I bought at the 99 cents store.

You can also use cookie cutters, pie tins or just free form it!

2. Place the beads in a single layer on the bottom of the form. Try to fill the entire area the best you can to avoid holes (but holes can be cool).

3. I melt my beads at 425 for approximately 25 minutes. The time needed to melt the beads will depend on a few factors, size of your beads and your oven. Less melting times = the beads holding more of their original shape. More melting time = more blending.

Warning**Melting beads lets off toxic fumes that are strong enough to lower your IQ!

I highly recommend that you melt your beads in an old toaster oven that is placed on your back patio or another well ventilated area.  Seriously people, these stink and I'm sure the fumes are bad for you.

If you aren't worried about your IQ and use your indoor oven make sure you have plenty of ventilation by opening the doors, windows and running a fan or two.

Just the little whiff's I got by opening the door to the toaster oven was enough to make me feel like I had probably lost a few brain cells in the process (but it is worth it).

More molds!

4. After we melted our beads we let them cool and then peeled them out of their tin foil forms. I also tried using a cookie cuter and the cooled plastic popped right out of it.

5. Next I grabbed my supply of soft 24 gauge wire to wrap around the girls creations.

After a few wraps and curly-q's.

A sun catcher was born!

After looking at these completed sun catchers I was thinking how cute they would look with some coordinating seed beads added to the wire.

The possibilities are endless.

***added 2/15/12 -- If you want to pin this craft on Pinterest....Yee haw and thank you.  However, could you just pin a picture and refrain from copying all of my text into the pin.  Thanks and happy crafting.

Here are some links to some other melted bead tutorials:

Bowls
Bracelet & ring
Art
Lampshade
Night light cover

Happy Crafting!