What In The World?? Zippers!

You may remember from my last post I received quite a few zippers in the envelope of random sent from Heather at Dollar Store Crafts.  These zippers have been keeping me up at night, what could I do that hasn't already been done a bazillion times by the other online crafty folks.  I have seen zipper necklaces, and zipper flowers, exposed chunky zippers in place of invisible zippers on skirts and pants.  Well last night inspiration struck.  I didn't write down my idea, which usually means it will be forgotten by the morning, but when I woke up, I still remembered. It is craft destiny!  Insert really epic music HERE!

The Zipper Cuff

Here is what you need

• Cardboard roll- I used a paper towel roll
• 4 zippers, in coordinating colors- they need to be a few inches longer than it takes to go around your wrist
• Ribbon- I used two colors but you could use one, use colors that go with your zippers
• Hot glue
• Elmer's glue

 *** A note on supplies and colors.  Everything I used I had on hand.  However if I were to do this craft again, I would make some changes.  I would use different color zippers.  I would probably go toward neon, or more bad ass colors like gray, black or gold.  One of my new years resolutions was to be more bad ass...  I thought that yellow and the pink and teal would look good together but I think that the finished product looks slightly like an Easter egg.  I might have used black or gray ribbon for the center stripe and the ends if I had some. I would also make the cuff a little less wide, I am not sure my little wrists can pull it off...

Here is what I did-

1. Cut the cardboard to size you want your cuff to be.  I made mine quite wide, still not sure how I feel about my length.  The skinnier yours is the closer the zippers will be, or you can use less zippers.


2. My cuff didn't quite go all the way around my wrist so I added a bit of extra cardboard the same width to make is a bit bigger.  I glued on the extra with regular Elmer's glue.

 3. Cut the tops off your zipper right below the metal part that holds them together.  Take off the zipper pull and separate each zipper into two pieces. 

4.Remember you have a lot of laundry to do, and go throw it in the washer.  This step is optional...

5. Set your zipper design.  I decided I wanted to do stripes with the pink and teal zippers I was sent from Heather.  The pattern certainly doesn't have to be symmetrical like mine, it could be totally random.  I set the pattern out on the floor, with the zipper part facing out and set my cuff base on top to check out the fit.

6. Next I glued a strip of yellow grosgrain ribbon down the middle.  I would not do it this way again.  In the end it looks better to have the ribbon down the middle cover your zipper sides, not the other way around.

7. Now I started gluing.  Working from the outside in, glue the zippers down in the pattern you chose.

Leave the ends hanging off a bit. We will finish and trim them at the end. 

As you begin to layer the zippers you might notice that the fabric sides are bubbling up a bit.

As you glue press firmly down and slide your finger to even out the zippers.

You can also add a tiny amount of glue to keep everything flat.

7. Go put your laundry in the dryer.  Again this step is optional

8.  Once you have all the zippers layered, add the ribbon over of the middle.  Also trim the ends of the zippers and the ribbon to be flush with the edges of the cuff.

9. To finish the raw edges, I encased the edges with white ribbon.  To do so, I put a line of hot glue on the very edge on the zipper side and placed the ribbon edge on it.  Then I put a glue line down the inside of the cuff and folded the ribbon over and pressed the other edge of the ribbon into the glue.

10. Trim the edges of the white ribbon and burn quickly to seal them.  Be careful not to catch the rest of your project on fire. Wait, I think you probably had figured out that you shouldn't burn up your bracelet...

11. Now depending on your cuff base, and how large you made it you could have a slight problem.  The weight of the zippers and glue was causing my cuff to uncuff.  As in it was getting less circly.  So I glued a part of a rubber band to keep the cuff together.  

12. Unveil you finished product to all your friends!!

What the Heck?

As you may or may not know I recently received a package in the mail from Heather (great name!) over at Dollar Store Crafts.  As a part of April Stash Bust month and in celebration of Earth Day, Heather sent out envelopes of random stuff from her crafty stash, to ten lucky crafters.  I guess I got lucky! So here is a look at what I received. 

So here is what I got

• A really sweet letter from Heather
• A large manila envelope
• Five zippers
• two pieces of red shiny paper
• two red birds
• A bag of blue buttons
• A tattoo sleeve
• a giant red bead
• Some weird magnet things, Not sure I havn't opened them yet
• A pair of really red long gloves
• A really big plastic thing with snaps

So Heather said she sent me a bag of purely, random stuff because she thought I could make do with it.  I am glad she believes in me.  But seriously... I have no idea what I am going to do with all this stuff! I have a few ideas, zipper flowers, or some zipper jewelry/embellishment maybe?  The real kicker is that tattoo sleeve, what the heck am I going to do with that?  

Well look forward to some fun tutorials using these supplies with some of my own stash thrown in!

Just for fun, a few pictures of my day trip to Disneyland. 

My Dollar Store Challenge!!

As I mentioned a few days ago I am participating in a themed challenge going on over at Dollar Store Crafts.  I love making stuff from Dollar Store finds because everything is only a dollar (when I went last time they come on the loud speaker to remind us...), need I say more? So this week the challenge item was placemats. On Friday I headed out to the Dollar Tree and got two different placemats, I wasn't very impressed with the colors or the styles but I grabbed up this blue one.  I guess the real question is, what did I decide to make with it? 

A picture frame! I take an extreme amount of pictures and often I buy prints at street fair that are in non-standard sizes. Custom made frames are expensive so a dollar store revamp is a great money saver. 

Materials

• Placemat
• Matching needle and thread
• Hot glue
• Ribbon
• Add on's like sequins, beads, or thread for embroidery

First decide on the picture you want to use. You will want the opening on the inside of the frame to be slightly smaller than your picture, or you can make the opening bigger and create a mat for your picture. Since my placemat already had a border going on, I used that as my frame and chose a picture to fit. 

I cut a half inch border around the outside of three sides, the bottom and the two vertical sides. On the top I cut right along the pattern.  On the three edges, I folded the half inch over and sewed along the fold. Make sure you sew along the fold, it creates a pocket that you can slip the back into. Ironing might help create a sharp fold.

Once you sew all three sides you will have a a slot to slide the back of your frame into. Now, fold you frame in half and cut out the middle section, try and cut it out in a single piece, you can use the middle to create a mini frame, two for the price of one, dollar!

See the pocket?

For the back I used a cereal box that I cut open.  Trace the outside of the frame and then trim it down from there. Start big and slowly trim it down to the correct size. 

On the inside edges I bound the raw edges with ribbon.  Since I had no ribbon and thread that matched, and I was feeling super lazy, so I hot glued it. Measure inside edge to inside edge and cut some ribbon. Fray check the ends with a lighter really quickly.  Start with a short bead of hot glue near the edge and place the top half of the ribbon on in a straight line.  I placed the ribbon on top to check placement first then ran a thin bead of glue on the front and held the ribbon taught to ensure a straight line.  Flip the mat over and repeat on the backside, to encase the raw edge. Repeat for all four inside edges.  Once you are done it will look like this.

I added some table confetti I got a Pier One a couple years ago for the corners. For the top I added some yellow grosgrain ribbon tied in knots. Sadly I could not print the 8X10 I wanted to fill this frame but here is my finished frame.