Pop Tab Jewelry, Nella S.

Pop Tab Jewelry, Nella S. 6B

For the 2019 Maker Faire I decided to use recycled pop tabs to make jewelry. I really like working with metal and making jewelry and I recently found out that only 9% of the materials we recycle don’t actually get recycled! It’s only thrown into the landfill like regular trash. I decided to choose one recyclable material I noticed we used a lot. At first, I wanted to make jewelry out of recycled paper. But I couldn’t manipulate the paper they way I wanted to. So later I chose pop tabs and started to work with them to turn them into jewelry. Lots of people drink sodas and recycle them or throw them away. But, they can be turned into beautiful pieces of jewelry you can wear comfortably. So from there I started developing the best way to manipulate the pop tabs.

I went through many ideas and designs starting with paper quilling (the rolling and gluing of paper to make designs) than using wire to connect the pop tabs, but I finally decided on using ribbon and threading it through the pop tabs. I also used wire cutters to cut through the pop tabs and connect them but that method caused the pop tabs to become pokey so I only used it for earrings. One challenge I had to overcome was how to make the pop tab jewelry comfortable to wear. As I mentioned before directly linking the pop tabs using wire cutters caused it to become scratchy and almost painful to wear. I had to come up with another solution fast. And so I decided to use the ribbon and it made them much more stylish and comfortable to wear! I loved the look of the colorful ribbon and it seemed like everybody else did too!

To make the ribbon pop tab jewelry take a pop tab and thread the ribbon through the holes and over the middle bar. Than loop more pop tabs on to the same ribbon and continue this process until you have reached your desired length. To connect the ends just tie them together around your wrist, ankle, or neck. To make the earrings I cut through the two pop ends of the pop tabs and linked them together into fun shapes! This project was so much fun and I really recommend it for a boring rainy day weekend or any other time you need a fun craft.



I used these Pinterest pages for inspiration:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27936460169724105/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27936460169698865/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27936460169698837/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27936460166017059/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/27936460165619051/