Friday, April 3, 2009

Record recycling tutorial!!!

Ok folks here it is.....
Preheat your oven too about 200F degrees, if you have convect bake on it, I suggest you use that.
Take an old record that nobody will miss. Not your hubby's collection..lol. Make sure you are ventilating the room you are working in very well, there will be some fumes!
Put it on a pizza stone or cookie sheet. Both need to be big enough for the record to lay flat. That's right we are starting with the bracelets first.
DO NOT THROW AWAY THE ALBUM COVER!!!! I am working on recycling those too....I will share some ideas about recycling album covers with you. ( next week)
Ok back to the record..have some oven gloves ready, it will be HOT,...did I mention the record will be hot?
Check on it after about three minutes, if it is soft, cut it into strips like this...some need more time. Its more fun if you cut different sizes!



You might have to put it back in the oven several trips to soften it up again, so keep the oven on till we are done cutting.
Then cut round edges on the strips like this......



After all the cutting, put the strips in one more time. All together if possible, when they are soft, roll over them with something like an old can . This is to flatten them well enough to work with.
Note here, that if you want to punch holes or such in them you will have to reheat them. You cannot punch holes when they are hardened, they will for sure crack..trust me on this.
Once they are flat enough and hardened up again, you will need to sand the edges really well.( the edges can be very sharp) If you sand on the side that will be the top that's going to show when you wear it, it will give you a sort of leather look. I soak the strips with label on them in warm water and scratch the labels of and then I sand the labels of with my sander, if you try this make sure you are holding on to the strip really well and USE PROTECTIVE EYE WEAR!!! You can start embellishing them. BUT WAIT..IMPORTANT...anything you will use on them needs to be able to resist the heat you are using to soften them. Why? Well you will have to soften them to shape them...aha?
For that you can use the can...ehh vegetable can or such of course..lol. There are different sizes of cans, so make sure you choose one that will give you the fit you need. If you happen on the wrong size..well no panic...grab a different one and reheat the bracelet. When I made my bracelets, I let the ends overlap. This way they will have the expanding space to put them on...which is a good thing right?
I have lined mine with wool from a recycled wool skirt. its nice and soft plus it can stand the heat that's used. The wool was glued with E6000, please make sure you ventilate the room you are working in very well. Read the instructions on the glue...USE NON-FLAMMABLE GLUE!!!
Go crazy my friends and show me what you have made...pretty please???

1 comment:

Ny said...

Nice job! I will remember this and probably have to try it one day..now I will be dreaming up cool things to embellish it with...very cool idea! I wonder if it works with cd's as well? Thanks for sharing! :) Ny.