Ribbons and Much More: zipper

Zipper Heart - {The Ribbon Retreat Blog}

Valentine’s Day is on it’s way, and I thought it would be fun to make
some heart shaped embellishments for my girls.

We already have some heart bows made from ribbon, felt and fabric, so I thought I’d try a zipper!

After some experimenting, I found that a zipper heart is quite simple to make.
Today I’m going to show you how to make one for yourself.

Zipper Heart

Supplies:

14″ Zipper (you could use a shorter length, as I had 6″ left over)
Glue gun and glue sticks
Sewing Scissors
Hobby Scissors
Stretchy Ring Base
(I used mine as a ring.)

I used a basic pink 14″ zipper because I thought the zipper pull would add a fun touch.

You could also use The Ribbon Retreat’s Zipper Accents. You wouldn’t have the zipper pull, but you’d be able to skip a few steps because the zipper accents are already trimmed and ready to go.

The first step is to zip your zipper pull down to the bottom of the zipper.

Decide what size you want your zipper heart to be by
looping both zipper lengths over to the middle of the zipper.

You can loop to the front.

You can loop to the back.

Or you can loop the zipper lengths back and then bring the tails to the front.
This is what I decided to do.

Cut the zipper to the length that you want.
You’ll want to use your hobby scissors to do this so that you won’t dull your sewing scissors.

Word to the wise… do not, I repeat do not, leave the room to change the laundry at this point
because your child may be tempted to pull the zipper pull right off and you will spend the next 15 minutes trying to get it back on!

I cut my zipper down to 8 inches.
I still have 4 inches left, I’m sure I’ll be able to use them in another project.

Using your sewing scissors, trim the base of your zipper into a point.

Seal the ends of the point and the ends of the zipper lengths. I used Fray Check to do this.
Sealing it with a lighter doesn’t work very well.

Loop your zipper lengths around and secure them to the zipper point with hot glue.
You could also use a needle and thread to stitch your zipper heart together.

Do this with both zipper lengths.

And your Zipper Heart is finished!

Now you can attach your zipper heart to your ring base.

I used hot glue, but E600 glue would probably be a better choice.
I’m not sure how well the hot glue will hold.

You could also attach your zipper heart to a hair clip. Or it would make a cute necklace! The zipper heart would also look darling on a bracelet. Or how about some earrings?

Of course, the zipper heart makes an adorable ring!

Daisey is so excited to wear her new ring to school!

info from: HERE

To make this flower you will need a zipper, scissors, adhesive, a needle and thread in a color that matches the zipper.

First step is to unzip the zipper and cut off the end piece with the zipper pull attached.

Next cut 6 pieces of zipper about 2 1/2” long. (I used 2” pieces and thought they could be a little longer).

Thread your needle and make a running stitch down the side opposite the teeth for each of the 6 petal pieces.

Once you’ve finished stitching hold the zipper and pull the thread to gather the zipper. The zipper will naturally curl inward.

Once it is curled in stitch the ends together and secure your stitches. That’s it for the petals.

For the center of the flower take a long piece of zipper and again use a running stitch up the side of the zipper opposite the teeth. Start gathering as you go, it’s easier than trying to gather it all at the end.

Keep going until you’ve reached the size coil you want, I eyeball it but it’s usually a good size when you have two coils. Then stitch the bottom to the rest of the zipper to hold the coil in place.

To put it all together, cut out a circle from a piece of scrap paper. It doesn’t have to be a perfect circle just something that can help guide you and give you something to adhere the petals to.