Recycled Bicycle Inner Tube Earrings

It's summer! Which means if you call your local bicycle shop, you can probably get lots of one of my favorite craft materials for free. Bicycle tire inner tubes.

My favorite use is making bracelets. This tends to leave some pieces too small to use. These earrings use small scraps, and are very lightweight.

To prepare your inner tube, you cut it open and use dish soap and a sponge to clean the rubber. The inside has a powder coating you'll want to clean off. Let it dry.

The tubes can be cut using hand punches, scissors or a craft knife.

You will need:

• 2 6mm jump rings
• 2 3 mm jump rings
• a couple of inches of a bicycle inner tube
• earring findings
• pliers
• 1/16 inch hole punch

For these earrings you'll need 2 sets of 2 strips. The shorter ones should be at least a half inch shorter than the long ones. Mine were about 3.5 inches long and 2.5 inches long.

My jump rings were made using 18 gauge round wire. For the bigger ones, I used a size 10 knitting needle as a mandrel, for the smaller ones, I use my round nose pliers.

Use a 1/16th hole punch to punch holes centered on each end of each strip.

Open the 6 mm jump ring, and thread on the long strip and the short strip, then the other side of the short strip and the other side of the long strip. Close the ring. Open the 3 mm ring and put it through the large jump ring and the earring finding. Close. Repeat the same steps to make the matching earring.

These are so fast and easy to make. They would make a fun gift for cyclists in your life, and hopefully inspire lots more ideas!

Reclaimed rubber bracelets

The people at Alaska Bicycle Shop have been very kindly saving damaged bike tire inner tubes for me. When I went to pick them up they had 37 in a basket for me. More than enough to make lots and lots of bracelets, but given how versatile this material is for crafting, I suspect still not enough.

If you have a bicycle tire inner tube from your own bike, or can get them from a local bicycle shop or friends, these bracelets are very fast and easy to make.

You will need:

A prepared piece bicycle tire inner tube

snaps and snap setter - I used Dritz snaps

scissors or craft knife- I used tiny sharp scissors that aren't quite sharp enough anymore for my beading thread, but still in fine shape for the rubber

a light colored gel pen

rubbing alcohol

stencil

To prepare a piece of the inner tube, cut off a length that's an inch longer than the bracelet you want to make. Cut it open and with hot soapy water and a dish scrubbie, scrub off the white powder residue from the inside of the inner tube. Let dry.

Prepare the stencil. I just printed it out on paper and cut out the pieces. Click on the image for the full sized version. You may need to modify it somewhat for the width of the inner tube you are working with, making the flower petals a little closer or maybe a little bigger. 

Using the stencil, trace the design on the back of the inner tube using the gel pen, then cut out the negative spaces. 

Cut around the whole design leaving about 3/8th of an inch border around it and tabs on either side to attach snaps to. Double check the size on your wrist before cutting the tabs!

Attach snaps following the instructions on your package of snaps. The gel pen marks from the back can removed with a bit of rubbing alcohol.

On, these look almost like tattoos. The rubber may try to curl some when it's lying flat, but once it's on it's flat. Some of the inner tube may have printing on it, and that adds a nice bit of character to these sorts of bracelets. My son plans to do some mystery braid bracelets using the same material. Absolutely one of the best reclaimed materials I've ever worked with.

Comments locked because of spam. Sorry about that!