Fun with zippers

A few months ago (more than a few? I lose track of time occasionally) my mother-in-law gave me a Giant Bag o' Zippers. And by a Giant Bag I mean a Giant Bag. I have zippers out the wazoo. (I guess that's how one would spell 'wazoo' - spell check doesn't seem to have a problem with it.) Anyway, I've been pinning zipper crafts for a while now, and the other night I finally sat down on the floor, emptied the GBoZ and started picking through them. I found that I had four 7 in. zippers, which seemed like the perfect size for bracelets, so I started brainstorming ideas on how to get from point A to point B.

I have an eyelet kit, which seemed like it would simplify things, but I soon figured out that the hole punching side wasn't sharp enough to punch through the heavy duty zipper fabric. Then I found a way to make the hole using one of the attachments, but it only worked making the largest size hole, and that wasn't working either because then there wasn't enough fabric left for the eyelet to grab onto. Luckily I figured all this out on one zipper so it wasn't too much of a waste. I finally managed to devise a system that worked (I honestly don't even remember exactly what I did. It was a combination of the eyelet hole punch, and an exacto knife.) I made two bracelets, then removed myself from the situation before I went insane.

I was fairly satisfied with the two bracelets I made (one of which I gave away on facebook) but the thought of that failure still bothered me. Mainly because the zipper that I had started out with was a gorgeous light turquoise, absolutely beautiful, and I really didn't want it to have been wasted. Then, yesterday morning while browsing pinterest, I saw this a photo series of a zipper folded into a hear and made into a necklace. (No source, it was just a series of pictures made into one long photo.) It looked really simple, so I took the basic idea and kind of fiddled with it a bit, and came up with my own take on it...and now I'm giving that away too! (I'm not big on necklaces. I have two that I wear interchangeably, when I remember...I just feel like they draw too much attention to my chest, which doesn't need any help, really.)

So here are the pictures...they were both pretty simple to make, using supplies I had laying around the house, especially the heart necklace...you could even recycle a broken zipper into one of these! And the yellow bracelet is the full zipper, so it can be worn either open or closed. :)