How to Make a Soda Bottle Jewelry Box

Recycle used Bottles to Make Whimsical Containers

Mar 11, 2010
Melissa Howard

Soda Bottle Jewelry Box - Melissa Howard

Salvage empty plastic bottles to make one of a kind boxes and containers.

Recycle your empty soda bottles or water bottles into whimsical, bright containers to give as gifts or to use for organizing the stuff around your home.

Supplies

Two empty, clean soda bottles
Heavy-duty scissors
Hot glue
Zipper
Trim
Wool felt

Instructions

Draw a line on both bottles where you want the cut edge of the cup to be.
Cut the bottles in half. Cut a clean edge where you drew the line. The easiest way to do this is by cutting notches from the initial cut towards about a centimeter from the line. Clip off the notched segments. Trim along the line. Note: Don’t begin cutting at the line you drew. Plastic is too rigid. Because it is rigid, you would have to bend or twist it, which causes mistakes. It is better to go slowly and trim off notched segments than to try to cut it quickly.
Do this for both bottles.
Open your zipper. Cut off the excess below the zipper tab.
Using the hot glue, begin gluing one half of the zipper to the inside of one of the cups. Make sure you begin to glue the zipper on from the end with the zipper tab (the zipper pull should be next to the stop tab at this point). Glue with the zipper pull towards the outside of the cup. Make sure you leave enough zipper above the edge so that the zipper will pull smoothly.
When you’ve glued all around the inside of the cup, cut off the excess zipper for that half of the zipper.
Glue the second half of the zipper to the second cup, cut off the excess zipper for that half of the zipper.
Zip the cup closed.
Decorate with trim and wool felt.

Ideas and Suggestions

Most bottles have a raised pattern on the bottom suggesting a flower. Cut petals out of wool felt and glue them to the pattern. Glue a fancy button to the center of the flower.
Save the smooth sides of the bottle to use for making plastic beads.
Use the soda bottle jewelry boxes as little gift boxes.
Make a set of containers for your little girl to store tiny earrings, rings, or hair bands in.
Decorate the bottles with a Christmas theme and hang them in your tree as Christmas ornaments to hold tiny Christmas gifts and surprises.
Pre-make the boxes and let the kids in your club or classroom decorate them. Talk about recycling while they decorate the containers.
Use googly eyes, craft felt, and pipe cleaners to make crazy critters.