HERE'S wishing everyone a bright and happy New Year! May your creative juices continue to flow as you join me in producing treasures from trash, jewelleries from junk, and decors from discards.

May you, too, delight in the "fruits" of your labour as much as I relish the challenge of churning out new ideas every week!

For the first project of the year, I've made use of strips cut from Sprite soda bottles. The way I've trimmed them with a border around the row of dots makes them resemble green pea pods. As they are rather light and transparent, I've joined six pieces together for each pendant for better visual impact.

Necklace and earrings

From plastic soda bottle, white beads, satin cord and wires

You need:

2 Sprite (1.5 litre) soda bottles

5 plastic white beads

Silk cord - Three quarter metre

5 jump rings

2 ear posts with butterfly scrolls

Wire

Scissors and cutter

Piercing tool

Pliers

Making the necklace

	1. Cut out the section of Sprite soda bottle with the embossed dots. Cut vertically in between the rows of dots to obtain 14 strips.
	2. Cut across a strip below the fourth dot to reduce its length. Follow the dots to trim the strip into a pea pod shape.
	3. Cut out four strips with four dots and two strips with three dots. Pierce a set of holes into the first dot of all the six strips. Place the strips together, with the shorter strips at the sides.
	4. Cut a short length of wire and insert it into a white bead. Push the bead to centralize it and bend the wire on its side. Turn the stacked up strips over to show the indented side of the dots. Insert the ends of the wire into the set of holes on all the strips.
	5. Pull the wire taut so that the bead stays firmly inside the indented hole on the top strip. Twist the wires together into a strip at the back. Bend and secure the twisted wire into a tiny loop. Spread out the soda strips into a fan.
	6. Add a jump ring into the loop of the soda strips pendant. Follow steps 2 to 6 to make three pendants.
	7. Thread the silk cord into the jump ring of a pendant. Centralise the pendant and tie a knot over the jump ring to keep it in place. Hang the other two pendants on both sides about 4cm away. Tie knots over the rings to keep them from sliding, too. Tie a knot on the cord at 4cm away from the side pendants. Adjust the length to suit your outfit and tie the ends of the cord at the back of your neck.

Making the earrings

1. Trim six soda strips into short lengths with three dots each.

Follow the steps for making the pendants to attach them together with a white bead and a jump ring.

2. Attach the jump ring to the tiny loop of the ear post with butterfly scroll.