Zip It Up: 3 Hot Accessories Made with Zippers
We’re back at it with zippers! We’ve shown you how to turn zippers into bracelets, how to use them to turn bootcut jeans into skinnies, and we’ve even used them as hair accessories.
Today in the world of zippers, we’ve cooked up a trio of accessories that’ll definitely add a little zip (pun intended) to your jewelry box.
Materials:
– metal zippers (we used 4)
– jump rings
– earring hooks
– chain
– ring
– tools: needle nose pliers, hot glue gun, lighter
You can use any zippers you like for this. We prefer the ones with metal teeth as they give an edgier feel to the accessories we’re making.
We’ll start with the pendant. Take two zippers and unzip and trim off the ends. Glue them together to that there are metal teeth on both the top and bottom of your piece. Snip into three pieces, each about 2 inches wide. Save the rest for your earrings.
Use a lighter to singe and seal the ends of the fabric so you don’t have any fraying.
Take your third zipper and add a stripe of orange. With your fourth, you’re using just the fabric part of this to create a little chevron pattern.
To attach each piece together, use jump rings. We used a needle to create holes for the rings to fit through and pliers to attach them to each piece. Do the same to attach the chain at the top.
Now the earrings.
Take the excess material from the pendant and cut it into 3 pieces, one that is 1 inch wide, one that is a 1/2 inch wide, and one that is a 1/4 inch wide. You’ll use these to create a chandelier effect. Use jump rings to attach each piece to the other one, as well as to the earring hook at the top. We added a little extra zipper to our earrings to jazz them up.
For the ring, the process is a cinch.
Use a silver band you already have or get a cheap bag of them at the craft store. The materials for this involve three zippers. Cut one black one to 2 inches wide, 1 light blue the same, and one gray one down so that it’s only the metal teeth. Start by gluing the black zipper onto the band, then layer on the blue, and finally the metal zip.
And that’s it!
You can even wear them all at once!
We also created another pendant and ring combo with more springy colors. So fun!