Wrap the clothesline around your finger to determine ring size or around your wrist if you want to go bracelet.
Leave a tiny bit of wiggle room because you’ll lose a bit when you seal the ends together.
(With those matches. Yes, there is fire in this tutorial.)
Instead of making paint puddles on my magazine work surface, I used the paint caps. Keep it clean, I say.
Give your clothesline a good coat of paint. Over, under, and all around.
I went for stripes and blocks of color, and I decided leaving the natural cotton rope was also nice.
Let the paint dry. I didn’t really time it—a couple hours should be adequate. Once dry, form the rope into a circular shape. The paint will make it stiff, so you might have to bend it a bit to loosen things up.
Now you’ll burn both the ends. Eeek! Only adults for this step.
As soon as the end heats up, the synthetic interior of the clothesline will get all melty.
That’s your cue to smoosh the two ends together. They’ll stick like glue.
Brush off the ashy bits and…Voila! Aww look, it’s a brand new ring!
Now, I did wonder about burning the ends of the clothesline, like if there might be a less smokey way to go. But I tried a couple glues and found the results messy, and corralling the wild and wooly ends of the clothesline, as it started to unravel, was pretty difficult with glue alone. The matches are a nice option because they melt all those flyaway bits together and really do form a tight bond. I’ve been wearing my rings for a week now and haven’t had any issues with things coming undone or the soot factor, so I’m sticking with fire. Duh, of course I am. I would, however, like to give them a coat of Modge Podge, so they don’t get all soggy when I wash my hands…also so the natural cotton parts don’t end up looking like Monika’s white fannypack. You know, all gray and sad, yet well-loved. Always well-loved.
But that, my dears, is for another day. Right now, I’m just going to enjoy this neon nostalgia.