Recycled Statement Jewelry with Pop Cans

Have you seen the gorgeous statement jewelry that is popular nowadays? You know, the big geometric pieces arranged on a necklace in bright bold colours? Well, instead of spending money to get the perfect statement piece, why not just make it?

As I have said. I do not wear jewelry all that often so I hesitate to buy any additional pieces because they just will not get worn enough to outweigh the cost. So instead, I make jewelry as I need it. Little to no cost, and no buyer’s remorse! This tutorial will show how I made my most recent statement jewelry piece and explain how you can make your own design from scratch using only pop cans and paint.

Recycled Statement Jewelry with Pop Cans

Materials and Tools:

• Pop cans (leftovers from making chain mail perhaps?)
• Scissors
• Sharpie
• Ruler
• Cotton swab
• Safety gloves
  

Step One:
Using scissors, cut into the body of the can. Start by puncturing the can at the top with one of the blades. Then insert the scissor blade into the hole and start cutting along the top edge just below the slope. When you start to get tension switch to cutting down the can from the initial hole, then cut along the bottom. Continue until you cut out the entire middle section of the can into a rectangular strip.

Step Two:
Wash off any pop from the cut out strip. Then flatten the strip by slowly bending it in the opposite direction it was originally formed in. The can does not need to be perfectly flat but you want to make sure it is not curling on its own anymore.

Step Three:
Sketch out your pattern. This takes several steps which I will outline below but first you have a decision to make: Would you like the border of your pendant to be the can design or just plain silver? If you want the border to be the can design (like my finished necklace), then draw your pattern on the INNER SILVER SIDE of the can. If you want a plain silver border, then draw your pattern on the OUTER SIDE of the can.

First draw the final shape you want your piece to have using a Sharpie. You need to draw each piece of the statement necklace separately so if you are making the necklace that I did, you will need two cans each with one triangle drawing on them. The possible shapes are numerous but I suggest starting with something that has fewer sides (triangle, square, pentagon).

Next, draw a rectangle on each side of your final design. The width of these rectangles should be about 1cm. These are the areas where your rolled sides of the piece will go.

Connect those rectangles at the corners (see the filled in areas). From those filled in areas draw sloped (almost triangular) lines out from the main design. These are the areas you will roll into the border of the design. Make sure to slope these areas well and end them with a flat line because you need to make sure they connect with the border pieces next to them at an angle.

Now that you have the design made, you just need to cut, roll, and colour the piece to get your final product.

Step Four:
Cut out your design. Note: the slope of my rolled pieces ended up not being angled enough so I had to trim the design. That is why the next picture looks different.

Step Five:
Cut one end of a cotton swab off. Place the cotton swab onto one of the border edges of the design and start to roll the metal towards the rectangular border area you set out for it in the design. Once rolled, pull out the cotton swab and roll the other sides.

Step Six:
Double check all your angles on the border and make sure everything is secured by the tension from the roll (whichever roll is tightest can hold down the others, otherwise use pliers to push them down). I suggest leaving some space at each corner of the piece so that you can thread wire or a chain through in order to connect each piece of your statement necklace.

Step Seven:
Now it is time to colour your necklace. You can either use acrylic paint and seal it with craft glue for a nice shiny bold look OR use nail polish (my current crafting obsession). It will likely take several coats of either method to turn out.

And you are done! Just attach to a chain and you have your first DIY piece of statement jewelry using pop cans!

There are so many possible design you could make with this tutorial and I would love to see what you can come up with so be sure to show me what you have made on social media!