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!