This is a fun and easy project, costs less than $1 to make, has tons of possibilities for customization, requires no jewelry making skill or real tools, and is a way to recycle stuff that would be thrown away! What could be better??

This was inspired by something I used to do when I was a kid back in the eighties, make friendship bracelets out of fishing tackle (specifically a barrel swivel). You can buy these anywhere they sell fishing gear – I paid 99cents for a pack of 12 and didn’t even use them all.

I combined that with my love of faux shrinky dinks from #6 plastic (previous instructable here or check out my Shrinky Dinky Test Lab experiments) for a fun, updated twist!

Of course, bracelets aren’t the only thing you can do with this — you could make drop earrings, necklaces, bead curtains, or whatever! This would also be a great project for kids to do, I could see this at a pre-teen girl birthday party…

All the instructions are here as an Instructable

PS… Don’t forget to please go vote for my Chocolate Dipped Chocolate instructable in the Sweet Treats contest!

Related:
All the Shrinky Dinks Test Lab Posts
Shrinky Xmas Ornament
Shrinky Wine glass markers

I don’t know if anyone else did these in the Eighties, but if not, maybe you can find other Eighties stuff you did do at Crafting with Cat Hair!

Oh, and the winner of the Anti-Valentines contest hasn’t contacted me yet. I’ve tried to find him/her and haven’t been able to. So please contact me in the next 2 days for your choice of prizes. Otherwise I’ll just start giving them out to the other winners, and you’ll have to take what’s left

These might be related posts, too:

1. How to Make a Lovely Friendship Bracelet, for cheap! (A Dabbled Re-run)
2. How to: Chocolate Dipped Chocolate Hearts
3. Part 1: HOW TO- Doodle Charms – Jewelry from recycled plastic
4. Coming tomorrow: The Shrinky Dinky Test Lab
5. A little art for this morning – Little Monster