2 Zipper Flowers - Tutorial

As promised I have a new tutorial for you fabulous bloggie friends based on creating a few flowers using zippers. I got my initial idea for these when I bought my DD a pair of shoes with a huge Zipper flower on the toe.....and after that I kept seeing Zipper flowers everywhere (or maybe that was just in my mind). So I set out to create an easy tutorial on how I created mine...and I am still playing around with the idea for more, so be warned...there may be another installment to this tutorial :)

Supplies Needed:

*Zipper - 18in long

*Needle & thread

*Scissors

First what we need to do is cut the Zipper pull and the end stopper off the zipper. That's where a good pair of scissors are needed. I used my Tim Holtz Tonic ones because they will cut through anything (including metal) and stay sharp! Love them!!
After you cut the Zipper pull and stopper off the zipper you will have cut off about 1inch leaving a 17inch Zipper area to work with.
Then simply use a running stitch up the entire side of the zipper on the fabric area.
After you complete the stitch up the side of the zipper just pull the thread to create a tight gather. The zipper will begin to twist into a circle. Make sure to leave the needle and thread on the zipper. We do not want to cut this off because we will be using it :)
Take those circle twists and start arranging them. You will want to take the very end of the zipper and just tuck it under. Use that as your starting point and wrap the zipper around until you get a look that is pleasing to you.

Once you get a desired look simply take your thread and hand stitch the zipper together to create a solid flower. This works best if you start in the back and bring the stitches all the way through to the center.

And there we have it - our Zipper flower. These look pretty awesome as is, but if you want to add something to the center - that looks sweet as well!

We are using the same exact Supplies for this flower as in the previous one. And it starts out the same as well. We need to cut both ends off the Zipper giving us about a 17inch piece to work with. The first thing we are going to do for this flower is cut the Zipper. We need 5 pieces of 2.5inch zipper. These will be the petals. There will be a little left over after we cut these 5 pieces - we want to save that and cut it down to 3 inches. This piece will be the center of the flower.

Next we want to start creating our petals. To do this simply take one of the 2.5inch pieces of zipper and bend it like shown.

Using our needle and thread simply tack the two ends together. We don't want those babies coming apart!!

Repeat this process until you have all 5 petals complete.

Next we are going to start forming our flower. To do this slightly overlap the petals and stitch them into place where one petal touches the other. This forms a really solid base.

And here is what our flower base looks like after we have stitched all 5 petals together.

Next we are going to create the center of the flower using the 3inch piece of zipper. Add a Running stitch to the fabric area the lenght of the zipper.Then simply gather the stitch to form a circle. Tack this circle together with your thread.

And then add tack it down it down to the center of your flower base!!

And there we have it folks, another Zipper flower completed!