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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Three!

Here's my third project from the Magical Random-Envelope-of-Junk. (For first-time readers, please see previous posts; I'm not really crazy.)

Behold necklaces...



...made from zippers!



There are lots of zipper creations out there on the internet - I love the many zipper roses and brooches I have seen. But I have been a little intimidated to try one; I've never been able to roll a ribbon-style flower in that crafty way those clever sewing people have. So I came up with this idea, 'cause I am all about the simple.

All I had to do here was use two of these little guys:




They're called ribbon ends, and you can find them at craft stores, any bead shop and probably some fabric shops. I just folded down the excess fabric at the top of the zipper, and pressed the ribbon ends closed with pliers. I attached short lengths from a deconstructed thrift-store chain, and a clasp. Add a pendant, and your zipper necklace is done.


(Simplify: if you don't have pliers, the ribbon ends are easy enough to close by hand, just squish between your fingers. Even simpler simplify: you don't need to use ribbon ends at all! There's ABSOLUTELY NO REASON you couldn't just sew the chain-segment on with needle and thread.)

The funnest part: picking out a pendant to hang from the zipper. You will want something nice and big to balance out the wideness of the zipper at the bottom.




I chose two rose pendants from my handmade stash. I made them using these upcycled oddments:


I bought the black poker chips at the dollar store. I found this old, slightly weird-looking stamped-metal earring at a yard sale. I pressed polymer clay into the rose part, baked and painted it. Glue rose to poker chip, drill a hole...voila pendant.




I also tried some shell flowers, for a different look in which the zip is partially hidden:



I was surprised by how wearable these turned out to be. They have the additional, amusing feature of being zippable! You can actually shorten the necklace a little bit by zipping it up until the bottom of the pendant just hides the bottom ends of the zipper.


Hooray! Another fun Dollar Store Crafts-inspired project. Three down, seven to go.

9 comments:

  1. Those are spectacular! See, the universe wanted you to blog about your amazing creations! I'll link up to these on Friday (I think) - they get their own post!

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  2. These are ridiculously awesome! Definitely (and finally!) a zipper jewellery project that I feel I can tackle.. bookmarked!

    Can't wait to see what you do with the rest of your envelope.

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  3. Pure genius! I know a certain teenager that is going to be the "wow factor" next week because I'm so going to do this for her! Thank you for sharing.

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  4. Wow - Heather, you are the best, thank you! Brilliant, creative AND encouraging to Newbies...we all appreciate you much.

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  5. wow! how creative! bookmarked and on my to-craft list :)

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  6. Wow, this is so cool! Heather from Dollarstorecraft.com emailed me about these and she was totally right- I love them! I would love to link to this project if you didn't mind.

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  7. This is a great way to tackle the elusive zipper craft! I too could never figure how to make those pretty things I saw, I can totally make this!!

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  8. Beautiful roses (the clay ones) and I really do love the piece with the white rose and pink charm..:)

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  9. awesome idea!!thanks for sharing

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