Paper Bead and Recycled Plastic Shrinky Dinks!

I found a craft here on how to make recycled paper beads .  It was fun!  I just used some old magazine pages, cut them into elongated triangles, doused them with glue, wrapped them around the thin handle of a skinny paint brush, pushed them off the end and boom.  Paper bead.  Now what was I going to do with them? Necklaces, bracelets, keychains? Perhaps.

I also stumbled across this website to make your own shrinky dinks out of recycled #6 plastic.  Usually the clamshell containers found at grocery store salad bars and take-out container are #6.  You simply cut out the plastic as shown here, then color with Sharpies and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for a few minutes, until the plastic begins to shrink and curl and then flatten again.

Knowing that in a few weeks, I had a Mother's Blessing to host, I incorporated the two crafts and adorned candles.  First I wrapped the candles in raffia so the bead/ shrinky dink embellishment would have something to cling to since it kept slipping off the glass candle holder.

I also made a necklace.  Recycling is fun, yo!