I Made These Cute Watermelon Earrings Out of Trash!

I made a skirt and a matching face mask using a sweet watermelon print, and now I am completing the set with a pair of watermelon earrings.. made from trash! 

Before: Disposable sauce dish

I got this disposable plastic mini saucer plate while dining in at McDonald’s several weeks back. Usually, I don’t even take the chilli sauce at McDonald’s because I am not a fan of the hidden sugar in the sauce. But on the rare occasion that I do, I would omit using the disposable plastic saucer and just put it on the wrapper that already comes with the burger. 

When the pandemic came into full swing in Singapore, a lot of restaurants took their self-serve condiment stations away completely because of hygiene concerns. So, a couple of mini disposable plastic plates piled with sweet chilli sauce came to me by default when they served my meal to me at my table. I felt like they would probably throw these away if I returned them, so I ate my fries with the chilli sauce (a little begrudgingly) and took the little disposable plastic plates home with me for a fun upcycled project. 

Other than making these watermelon earrings out of what was basically considered trash by most people, I also used only materials that I have at home!

Curious to know how? Here’s a quick run-down of how I did it:

Materials: scrap piece of green felt, red nail polish, disposable sauce dish, permanent marker, earring findings, pliers. Not pictured: scissors, hot glue gun

1. Trim the plastic saucer (if needed) and cut in half to make 2 semi-circles. (Note: I had to trim mine into a nicer circle first because the concave portion in the middle was off-centre)
2. Paint the centre concave portion of the semi-circles to make the “flesh” of the watermelon. I did this with my red UV-set resin nail polish. Any other red nail polish or even red acrylic paint can probably do the same job too! 
3. Draw 3 small seeds using a permanent marker.
4. Cut little rectangles of green felt and paste them around the rim of the plastic saucer to make the “rind” of the watermelon. Use either hot glue gun or a strong glue (e.g., E6000) to do this. Angle the little pieces in a way that make them fan out along the circumference of the each semi-circle. 
5. Trim the ends of the “rinds” as needed
6. Pierce a small hole on the top corner of each “watermelon”. Attach a jump ring and earrings hook for each side of the earrings. Make sure the watermelons are facing opposite directions.

And there it is! This was a really quick and fun project that had been brewing in my head. I’m so glad that I finally got around the making these watermelon earrings out of trash! 

Do you also enjoy upcycling? What is your last project made using “trash” or disposable plastic? 

x G

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