100 Things 2 Do: Plastic Bottle Icicles

This one was tough to photograph.
The plastic bottle was clear, so tough to see against my white and black backdrop.

Plus, you really do need two hands to do it properly, but hopefully you get the gist of it.

I wanted to make icicles.

Plastic bottle icicles to be exact.

They looked easy.

Definitely inexpensive as they're made with used plastic bottles.

So I gave it a whirl…

Cut both ends off of your bottle

Ignore that this still has the spout on it, I actually did it in the wrong order.

You can cut strips with an exacto knife, but I found that scissors actually worked better (and were less lethal).

Cut your strips to be about 1.5 cm wide by the entire height of the bottle.

Don't worry that they are all wrinkled etc.
Once you begin the melting, that will all but disappear.

Hold the plastic over the heat of the candle - not the flame.

Too close and the flame will burn the plastic and/or melt it too much.

You just need to 'warm' the plastic and gently twist (I should have a hand on each end of this so you could see the stretch and twist happening at the same time)

I found that heating the plastic every inch (2.5 cm) or so, and twisting and stretching at the same time gave the best results.

Below are my trial attempts.

Don't heat the entire strip of plastic, just specific spots at 1 inch increments or else this will happen.
Thank goodness it's free - screwing up isn't quite as painful that way.

A few attempts and you'll get the hang of it.

Punch a hole in the flat section and thread with fishing line.
Cut the ends to a point (if they aren't already).

You can add them to gifts as a decorative wrapping element, or hang them from your Christmas tree...