Melted Plastic Suncatcher

Back in the summer my nieces & I made these super easy, very pretty suncatchers. I made these with a non-stop talking, bubbly 7 year old fashionista & a 10 year old whos creative brain is busting at the seams, she has a purpose for every little piece of paper, stone & bottle cap she collects. From start to finish, not including Mr Freezie breaks & the occassional dip in the pool, this project was completed in about 2 hours......we talked alot while stringing beads.

I bought these hole-less (is that a word?) beads or beads without holes (that's much better) at the dollar store just because a ray of sunshine was pouring in the store's front window & landing right on this package of beads with no holes, they were sparkly, shiny & colourful....oh and calling my name!

Using the beads without holes & other solid coloured beads we had kicking around the bottom of the craft bin we filled the bottom of muffin tins. At first we tried making designs but the beads kept rolling around so we ending up just tossing them in randomly.

 I have experienced the smell of melting plastic in the past so I opted to melt these puppies on the BBQ. I turned the BBQ on, let it heat up a couple minutes and popped the trays in, closed the lid & crossed my fingers. I checked progress every minute or so, these took about 5 minutes to completely melt.
   I have to admit, they really didn't smell so I would say they are say to bake in an oven around 400 degrees.
Allow them to cool for a couple minutes, turn the tin over & these little pretties will pop right out.
   Did you notice the bottom left cup? Our attempt at a peace sign & right beside it, a rainbow  :)

 I heated up a metal shish kabob skewer, poked holes in each disc, hung them with fishing line & lots of beads.

 I hung the discs from twigs we had found but you could use anything you have kicking around. See how the bubbles in the plastic catch the light, oh so pretty!

 We added random beads here & there to make them look prettier, there was no rhymn or reason, no pattern, just the pure creativity & imagination of a 7 & 10 year old rushing to put things together so they could see their finished product.

TaDa !!!!!!  
  All complete, you can see the solid beads, our transparent coloured beads & our random beading technique. I have to say this was such a fun little project, all summer long they sparkled in the sunshine & they chimed in the warm summer breeze (chimed? maybe more like klinked) but we LOVED them!

Happy Melting !