31 Days Series: Bat necklace

Ahh I'm cutting it close tonight! 11:17, I barely made it while it was still 'today'!

Ok, well let's cut to the chase, shall we? I used up some more of my black leather scraps tonight for a very easy bat necklace.

I bought these things last month when Dollar Tree first put out their Halloween stuff:

The faces make them a bit silly, but I like the shape and size, and for a dollar? Duh, I got them. I traced around the edge onto a piece of leather, cut it out, punched a hole at the top of each wing, and strung a piece of leather cord through it. Simplest necklace ever. (For a bit more pizazz, you can line the edge with rhinestones; I may do that later.)

Planning something great for tomorrow, but we'll really just have to wait and see because Josh has tickets to a wrestling match tomorrow night and I anticipate making him take me to Restore and a nice meal before I have to sit through God knows how many hours of giant sweaty men in my face. (We have front row seats.)

(See a list of the other 30 days in this series here.)

HERE IN MY CAR...

We've had the TV on the 'Flashback New Wave' channel all week...AND IT IS SPECTACULAR.

I can't believe it's already Friday again. After I realized that I rushed off to the post office to mail the necklaces that I gave away on Facebook last week, lest people think I promise things but then fail to deliver. Now it's in the hands of the post office. If they don't deliver, at least it's not on me.

I made a lot of things this week, and also (tried) to clean and rearrange my craft room. It's like 80% done but I already started in the kitchen so this weekend is going to be interesting trying to finish them both. In reality, though I'll probably do nothing for the rest of today, then start on the bedroom tomorrow morning, and then have three half finished rooms for the rest of the week. Eh. As long as it gets done before the third week of September.

Oh, the things I made, right...I think I posted pictures of a few things, mostly the leather bracelets...I also made this:

And while it may just look like another boring Chan-Luu style bracelet, there's actually a much more in depth story behind it...see back in 2004, when I used to get Lucky magazine (the first time around) I saw a bracelet like that in there. I don't remember the brand, but it was pretty much exactly like the Chan-Luu ones that have recently soared in popularity. Anyway, I knew that I could make one very easily, so I did. But the beads I used weren't all that great and before long the color rubbed off of them and they were clear with just flecks of color left on the insides of a few of them, and that looked crappy so I scrapped it. I started to make another but it's a rather time-consuming process, and it was around that time that I finally made some friends in Arkansas and started going out and so it sat, half-done, in a box of craft stuff for the next 6 years. (Not even kidding.) Then, two summers ago, I found it, and started thinking that I needed to either finish it or make another one...and as you can see, it took me two years to do that. And now everyone will think I did it because of the Chan-Luu craze, but I DIDN'T. I WAS EONS AHEAD OF THIS FAD. Just...not consistently.

Not that it matters, really...

Moving on...

I also started working on party favors for my second annual pumpkin carving party. (We missed last year because we were in the process of moving at the time I normally would have thrown it.) A few years ago (like 4) when I worked at Joann's for all of 3 months (if that) I bought a bunch of packages of Halloween themed Christmas ornaments. (Surprising that they didn't sell out, huh?) I wanted to make jewelry out of them but after gluing earring backs onto a couple of them I lost interest and they too got banished to the Craft Box of Shame. But, like I said, recently I've been in a crafty mood and I pulled them out and started making them into necklace charms. Here's my process (sort of):

This is what they look like originally, with the string:

I pulled that out using tweezers (I just grabbed it tight, then twisted it around and around until it popped out - pulling it would usually resulting in it breaking off at the edge, and leaving part of the string in there.) Once I had an empty hole I would dip one of those tiny rounded top screw things in (E6000) glue (they're actually made for picture frames) and then screw it down into the hole.

And then, after those were dry, I could attach a jump ring and string it onto a necklace chain!

Now I have a box full of cute things to give away!

Tonight we're heading downtown to watch Joshs cousins band play at our local bar/live music venue, and as I mentioned, I'll probably be cleaning a bunch over the weekend, but once I get my craft room 100% organized I'll try to post some pictures! It is much more comfortable to work in now, and I have it set up to be inspiring and easy to get at all my stuff.

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. :)