Recycled Bowling Balls as Beads

My friend Matt Cole has long made the silver beads that I use in my jewelry creations.  His silver bead company, IndoExpo, creates my favorite beads and clasps, hand down.

He now lives in the Midwest with his wife and little boy and has been designing sterling silver beads and jewelry for years.

Matt has now taken his life-long love of bowling to a new level — creating a unique line of jewelry with discarded bowling balls that would ordinarily be destined for a land fill. How cool is that?

Bowling Ball  Bracelet

Bowling Ball Bracelet

I love that he’s making beautiful beads out of a recycled material, and an unusual one at that. I also love his attention to detail. I love how some of his recycled bowling ball jewelry looks like miniature bowling balls!  Imagine showing up on league night with these dangling from your ears! You'd think they'd be heavy, but once cut down to bead size, they're incredibly lightweight.

Bowling Ball Earrings

You can visit Matt Cole’s recycled bowling ball jewelry site by clicking http://www.matt-cole.com/.  Tell him Lori sent you, and that she said the jewelry would “bowl you over”!

(Ha ha — see what I did there?)  

Lori Anderson creates jewelry for her web site lorianderson.net.  She writes the blogs Pretty Things and An Artist's Year Off.  She lives in Maryland.