DIY Figurine made of waste plastic bottle

Here is another recycling project of mine. As you know I love recycling plastic bottles, waste paper and such. Fairy House Lamps are a great way to do so: Making Fairy House Lamps. If you like to start with something smaller, maybe this is the project for you: DIY Figurine out of waste plastic bottle and scrap fabric. Also check out how to recycle glass bottles and jars by turning them into luminaries, candle holders and vases. Bottle Art Luminaries, Candle Holders and Vases with Jute. And let’s not forget the textile yarn out of t-shirts. Make Textile Yarn Yourself. There are so many ways to recycle waste items and old things. Why don’t you try it as well?

You start with choosing the right plastic bottle for your figurine. I even had a paper roll as an option, but it did not work with the shape I had in mind. In the end I took the blue shower soap bottle.

The next step is to shape the upper body out of aluminum foil. If you have waste foil to use it’s even better. It doesn’t have to be perfict, since it will get covered with modelling clay. Now hot glue the foil to the plastic bottle.

To make it easier to work with the figurine and for it to have a secure stand, hot glue the bottom of the bottle to a piece of stiff cardboard. It also gives you the option to attach the fabric more easily later on.

Next you need a little bit of modelling clay. Cover the upper body evenly with a thin layer of clay. It is not necessary to cover the bottom as it will be hidden away under the dress.

Now you can already start playing around with scrap fabric, as I did. 🙂 Sometimes a very plain figurine looks great, too. But I wanted a little bit more.

So I decided to give my figurine hair. I used modelling clay and a garlic press for that. Be careful not to break the hair while attaching it.

I ended up giving the figurine enough hair to put it up in a bun and also have some bangs.

At this point it is possible to stop and maybe put a glaze over the clay part. It gives the figurine a porcellain look. But I had a more antique look in mind. So the first step for that is to paint the figurine black!

To be honest I almost left the figurine that way. It looked very interesting and I think adding a combination of fabric and fairylights could have been really great.

But as you can see the antique look is missing. And that’s what I really wanted. So using gold color just with my fingers, putting it all over everything painted black did the job for me. My advice for this is to try it out on some paper first. Paint a part black, let it dry and then dab gold on it with your finger. That way you will get a feel for this which makes painting the body so much easier.

The nice thing with this technique is that you still have a tiny bit of black coming through. That makes it look oxidized and creates the antique style. Now all that is left is the dress.

To make the dress fall nicely it is best to create an underskirt. Cardboard strips work very well for that. Just use an old cereal or cookie box.

The strips you hotglue onto the lower part of the body and the cardboard stand.

Now take the fabric for the dress and drape it over the figurine until it falls nicely. Then hotglue the hem of the dress to the cardboard. Don’t worry about still seeing the strips. The excess cardboard gets cut off.

Now you only have to fix the upper part of the dress. Use the hotglue carefully when attching the fabric. You can also make a belt like I did.

Now you carefully cut the cardboard and voilà your DIY figurine made of a waste plastic bottle is finished. If you like you can glue some black felt to the bottom of the cardboard.