Hot Glue Rings

Hi All,

We have all at some point use hot glue gun as an adhesive material, making small DIY craft, or doing a quick repair. Today I want to add another thing on the list on what we can do with a hot glue gun – a Hot Glue Ring. My idea was inspired by Allison Murray’s work on her DIY Jewellery. Mysterious_Gal also did an Instructable for a hot glue ring, you can read it here.

If you have ever played around with hot glue before then you will know how difficult it is to draw a shape or design with it. Therefore instead of drawing a pattern for the ring I will flatten the hot glue and decorate it using the craft stamp.

In the following steps I will explain on how to make two types of Hot Glue Rings – a Punched Ring & a Flower Ring (sorry for my ignorant of the correct terms for rings. lol)

• Cutting Board
• Cutting Tools – Scissors, Craft Knife
• Hot Glue Gun
• Hot Glue Sticks
• Hair Dryer
• Any cylindrical shape to act as a roller (it has to be made of metal/aluminium so that the hot glue won’t stick to it – I use a tyre wrench)
• Twist tie (or a string) to measure your finger’s ring size
• Craft Punches
• Spray Paint & Acrylic Paint- Optional

Use the twist tie (or any string) to measure your finger’s size for the ring.

1. Prepare a piece of paper as a surface to melt the glue.

2. Press the trigger and melt the glue in a wiping motion downwards for around 3 inches length.

3. Take the wrench/metal rod and while the glue is still hot, roll over it gently – do it fast or it will stick on the paper.

4. Let it cool for a few minutes. Once it hardens use the glue gun hot nozzle tip to flatten the rough surface.

5. Cut open the glue and peel it off the rod. The thickness of this glue is comparable to a thick paper or a card stock. We are going to use this for the Punched Ring.

As for the Flower Ring we need a thicker ring so repeat the glue melting process. Roll over the metal rod, let it dries. And then melt another portion and roll over the hardened glue over it again. This will thicken the glue width.

1. Lay the harden glue on the table. Use hair dryer to blow hot air to the surface of the glue. Be careful not to over-blow or you might melt the glue altogether.

2. Once the glue starts to soften a bit take the metal rod and roll over to flatten the glue – same way as how you flatten the dough with a rolling pin.

3. Repeat the process until you are satisfied that the surface is flattened and smooth.

To make the Hot Glue Rings you need to have this quantity of flatten glue pieces:

Punched Ring – 1 x thin flatten glue

Flower Ring – 2 x thin flatten glue & 1 x thick flatten glue

Finally we can make the ring!

1. First slide the flatten glue onto the craft punch.

2. Punch the design on both sides of the flatten glue.

3. Next, measure the ring size with the twist tie and cut accordingly. Remember that you need to join both ends in order to shape the ring, so leave some space for the joint.

4. Simply melt both ends and joint it to complete the ring. Trim any excess glue on the ring’s edge.

As the name suggests, I use a craft punch with flower motive for this ring.

1. First get the thick flatten glue and cut it out for approximately 3 cm in width.

2. As in Step 5, measure the ring size and joint the glue ends.

3. Punch the flatten glue (the thin one) to get the flower petals. You will need around 6 – 7 of these.

4. Glue the flower patterns around the top of the ring.

If you don’t like the color of the hot glue you can paint the rings. I used a chrome color acrylic spray paint for the Punched Ring and acrylic paint for the Flower Ring. You may also add embellishments to further decorate the ring according to your taste.