Never Throw Plastic Bottles Away Again: Turn Them Into Adorable Hanging Lights

Is your nightstand or kitchen counter littered with plastic water, soda, or juice bottles? Recycling is better than trashing them, but you can also repurpose them. There's a surprising number of ways to reuse plastic bottles, and Youtuber deryatavas has one more for you to consider. You can make gorgeous floral hanging lights out of your old plastic bottles. The plastic can be cut apart, shaped into flowers, and paired with string lights or other small light bulbs. For this craft, you'll need your plastic bottles, scissors, hot glue, lights, and a source of heat such as a candle, lighter, or heat gun. You may also want paint or markers to decorate your flowers and electrical tape to help attach them to the lights.

The heat source is used to warm the plastic, which makes it more malleable. This allows you to curl the edges of the plastic petals, give the petals a wavy look, and smoothen the edges somewhat so they aren't as sharp. However, it's important to note that heating plastic can cause it to release harmful fumes. While the heat applied to the bottle is relatively minimal and for a short time, you should still take the bottles outdoors or to a well ventilated space to heat them. If you don't have a suitable space, have a health condition that impacts your breathing, or just want to be extra cautious, you can skip the heating step entirely. Your flower will just be a slightly different shape.

Start by removing the label and lid from your plastic bottle. The opening where the lid was will be the center of your flower, where the light will sit. From there, measure out how long you want your flower to be and cut the bottle straight across at that point, removing the bottom. Trace and cut the shape of your petals onto the bottle. Leave the bottom edge of each petal attached to the neck. The other half of the bottle can be cut apart into leaves or extra petals for a fuller flower. Carefully use a small flame, heat gun, or hairdryer to heat each petal. The plastic petals should curl and warp when hot. More heat will give your petals a more dramatic curl, but be careful not to overdo it. You may want to cut a couple scrap pieces of plastic to test so you know what to expect. Be sure to handle the heat source and plastic carefully to avoid burning yourself.

After heating the petals and leaves, use hot glue or another strong adhesive to attach the extra pieces to your base flower. Be sure you're attaching the petals so that they're all curving in the same direction. The leaves should be attached at the neck of the bottle, below the petals. Add your string lights to the neck so they shine through the flower and use some electrical tape to hold them in place. Hang up your string lights and you're done!

You can easily add your own flare to this craft by changing the size and shape of the petals and leaves. Deryatavas made her plastic bottles into water lilies, but you could use smaller, rounder petals for a rose shape or cut the bottle into long, thin strips to create a spider lily or chrysanthemum. Coloring the plastic with paint or markers can also be an opportunity to make your plastic flowers stand out. A thick coat of paint may prevent some of the light from passing through your flowers, but that may not be an issue, depending on where you hang the lights. Alternatively, you could use plastic bottles that are already colorful to form your lights, taking the guesswork out of the decoration phase.

Likewise, if you love using fairy lights but want something a little different, you can swap the regular string lights out for colorful Christmas lights or even an electric candle. If you do use an electric candle, you may need to cut a larger opening for it. Do that before you cut your petals, so you know where the base of the petals will be. If you aren't using string lights, you'll need to attach some string or ribbon to the bottom in order to hang it up. If you had to cut the neck of the bottle off to fit the electric candle there may not be a convenient place to tie the string, so you'll likely need to glue it to the flower directly.