Brit Kit: A Necklace Made out of Zippers?!

For my third craftinista* post of the week, Brit + Co sent me this fabulous Brit Kit to make your very own zipper necklace.

That’s right… a necklace made out of zippers. It sounds incredibly weird and honestly the directions intimidated the crap out of me. But I thought that if my finished necklace turned out even half as cute as the one that Brit is wearing on the website, it would be worth the time I spent on it.

Here’s what came in the kit: 3 black zippers, 4 colored zippers, gold findings, glue, 3-in-1 pliers, black backing and the instructions.

Here’s how the project went:

Brit Kit zipper necklace - suppliesThe kit supplies. Are you kidding me with this? I’m supposed to make a necklace out of THIS?!

Brit Kit zipper necklace - cut zipsOk, I cut the extra fabric off the zippers.This is do-able so far…

Brit Kit zipper necklace - first strand gluedThen I glued the zipper tabs on each end and glued on my first zipper. Not too hard…

Brit Kit zipper necklace - halfway doneMore gluing. I’m actually doing a pretty good job!

Brit Kit zipper necklace - finished necklaceHoly guacamole, I just MADE this out of zippers!

Impressive, right? Who would have ever thought that I’d end up with something so sassy when I started with a desk full of zippers?! If you’re interested in this kit for yourself or a fashionable friend, it’s available on Brit + Co’s website for $24.99.

Would you like to win this necklace? I’ve decided to give away this zipper necklace, as well as the Joan of Arc necklace I made in this post. All you have to do is leave a comment and tell me which necklace you’d like to win! I’ll draw the winners on Wednesday, January 15th at noon.

Disclosure: I was provided a Brit Kit for free as a ‘thank you’ for participating in the Brit Co-Op. I was not required to review the kit, recommend it or even blog about it at all. I just loved it so much that I wanted to share it with my readers!

* If TJ Maxx can call someone a Maxxinista… I can certainly call myself a craftinista!

1/15/14 Update: Winners have been picked and I’m thrilled to announce that Erika has won the zipper necklace and Cathy C has won the Joan of Arc necklace! Emails will be going out to the winners today so that I can pop your prizes in the mail by the end of the week. Thank you to everyone who entered and keep your eyes pealed for more fun contests and giveaways in the near future.

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A Toddler Pillow to Make EVERYONE Happy

Today is part two in my mini-craftinista* series and it starts with a little story…

Have you heard of sleep regression? Apparently it’s a wonderful time in a child’s life where after months of going right to sleep and sleeping through the night, suddenly they don’t like to sleep anymore.

For Jack, this happened a few weeks ago – after sleeping like a champ we had to coax him into bed with a tiring combination of reading, rocking, milk in a sippie cup, snuggling with mommy, snugging with daddy and some more rocking. He even ended up in bed with us for a couple nights, only to be kicked out when he kept KICKING ME in the back all night long. I mean, I’ll take that crap from an 8 pound rescue dog… but NOT a 30 pound little man!

It was exhausting.

Which is funny because JACK was exhausted and just would NOT go to sleep.

So in a fit of brilliance (or just overtired madness) I told Jack that I had a SPECIAL pillow only for Big Boys to use. This SPECIAL pillow would go into his crib, but ONLY if he was a Big Boy who would lay down on it and go to sleep.

Can you believe that this worked?

Suddenly Jack stopped fighting sleep and would go right into his crib to lie on his special Big Boy pillow.

I’m a genius. A parenting genius.

Send your checks today to get your very own SPECIAL Big Boy pillow. Also available in Big Girl…

Just kidding. The secret is that I grabbed the closest pillow I could find, which was an old accent pillow that I had made for our couch ages ago. After living on the couch for a while, it somehow ended up in Jack’s room on his rocking chair. It was so well-worn that it’s quite flat… which makes it perfect for Jack since he can’t smother himself on it.

After Jack slept on it contently for a couple weeks, I figured I should make a pillow case for it so that I can keep it clean. So I grabbed an old pillowcase that we’ve probably used for 10 years or so and made it fit:

Toddler-pillow-before-updatedCheck this out… it’s a magical pillow. Which is actually just a pillow I made a bunch of years ago from an old pillow case from Crate & Barrel.

First, I stuck the throw pillow in our old pillowcase and pinned around it with straight pins. I pulled it in and out a couple times to make sure that it wasn't too snug.First, I stuck the throw pillow in our old pillowcase and pinned around it with straight pins. I pulled it in and out a couple times to make sure that it wasn’t too snug.

I then removed the throw from the case and stitched around all three sides, removing the pins as I went so that I wouldn't stab myself and yell out bad words.I then removed the throw from the case and stitched around all three sides, removing the pins as I went so that I wouldn’t stab myself and yell out bad words.

Once I finished sewing, I cut off the extra fabric. You can use normal scissors or be all fancy like me with my pinking shears. Is it weird that I have no idea how pinking shears came to live in my house?

The finished magical SPECIAL Big Boy pillow. Mr. Bunny Rabbit approves.

Super cute, right?! And basically free.

And the best part is that I can sleep again!

* If TJ Maxx can call someone a Maxxinista… I can certainly call myself a craftinista!

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Toddler Painting: $6 Worth of Materials for $60 Worth of FUN

I think this is going to be another crafty week, because darn if I haven’t been feeling like a crafting QUEEN lately.

As most of you know, I was home for 16 days STRAIGHT for a sweet combo of work being closed (yay for working at a university) and a couple vacation days. SIXTEEN DAYS in a ROW. That’s kind of a lot.

And no, I’m not complaining because I loved having time off to hang out with Jack and Ollie. And yoga pants. And Christmas cookies. But mostly Jack and Ollie.

Keeping Jack entertained for that much time really forced me to be a little crafty, which is why I decided to do two different painting projects while I was home. The first project was from this month’s Citrus Lane box – it was supposed to be a handprint project, but turned more into abstract art. And I totally love it and hung it on my ‘Jack projects’ wall!

Our second painting project was inspired by some wooden snowflakes on clearance at JoAnn’s.

snowflake project - bare snowflakeThe snowflakes were on clearance for 50% off, which brought them to just $ .70 each. I also picked up a cheap paint pots kit for $1.50 and used some paintbrushes I already had at home. Then, I covered Jack’s little table with some kraft paper and stripped him down for some painting fun.

snowflake project - painting

snowflake project - painting close up

snowflake project - happy jackAnd it was SO MUCH FUN! I can’t believe how long Jack concentrated on painting the snowflakes… and believe me, doing anything for more than 15 minutes with a kid this age is impressive! When he was finished, I just threw the paper away and stuck Jack directly into a bath (the paint washed off easily).

Once the snowflakes dried, I stuck some thread through the holes and hung them up in my kitchen window. I also wrote the date on the back of one of the snowflakes so that 10 years down the road I remember when we made them.

snowflake project - finished

snowflake project - finished close upI really like my happy little snowflakes because they’re not “Christmassy” but more “wintery” so I can keep them up for the next couple months. This is especially nice since we took all our Christmas decorations down over the weekend and I’m totally going through withdrawal.

Do you have a super cheap and fun craft project for toddlers that I should try? Feel free to leave me a link below! Also, are you suffering from Christmas decorations withdrawal too? I kind of wanted to leave my tree up for another month…

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