$20.00 Bracelet

I was in the mall a couple of weeks ago and found a bracelet that was mad out of zipper flowers and sewn onto a ribbon that tied in a bow around your wrists. I thought the design of it was ugly but the zipper flowers were cute. to top it off when I looked at the price I about died. 20.00 dollars!! I kept thinking about it though and the other night after my boys went to bed I started figuring them out.

It didn't take long.I have a bag of old jeans I am going to make into a quilt so I went and got a few pair and these are the ideas I came up with. i have a ton more floating around in my head too.

Here is how to make the Flowers and the bracelet:
You will need:
Zippers
Scissors
glue gun/glue
needle nose pliers
an old pair of jeans
needle
apolstry thread
stich picker


if you use a old pair of jeans for the zipper unpick it and then take the zipper apart, if you just purchase one then just take it apart. eather way you want the zipper in 2. on some of my zippers I was able to use needle nose pliers to take the zipper stopper of on the other ones I just cut it off.

Then you will need the glue gun and start by dabbing a small dot and folding the material part of the zipper at an angle pointing down so it forms the center of your flower. then continue twisting the zipper around taking a tuck where you want the pettal to stand out. put drops of glue everywhere you need it to stick.



when you get to the end just round the corner down to smooth the edge and glue it.
when finnished forming flower turn over and put some glue along raw edges just to hold a little better.

Next I cut the band off of the jeans off and measured it to fit my wrist and cut the excess off. leaving the button and button hole to use as the clasp for the bracelet.


for this part you could use a sewing machine or just a needle and thread . I just sewed it by hand because the edges of the jean are thick and I didn't want to break the needle on my sewing machine. i used apolstry thread beacause it is a lot stronger thread and wont break. I first went over it with a running stitch then back over it with a quilt stich that you would use around the edge of a quilt. i did this just for a little more finnshed look.

I then aranged my flowers on the front the way I wanted them and put a large dot of glue on the back and glued it to the bracelet. (each zipper makes 2 flowers and different cloroed pants had differnt colored zippers)

After glueing them in place i went back through with my needle and thread and stiched the flowers down to the braclet just in a couple of places onto the bracelet and with one or two stiches hooked them to each other. the glue held it wonderful but i always like to secure things a little extra.




After that you are done. Where I cut the band from the pants I left the raw edges cause I thought the fray was cute. If you have any questions or better ides for use of these flowers post a note, make a comment or email a pic to ampollock@hotmail.com