Shoemergency. Solved.

Small things can have such big impacts. 
A fly in the ointment, a paper cut, a broken zipper.....
Sigh.
A friend arrived at an appointment only to find that her shoe's zipper pull had disappeared along the way.  She had to pry her boot off in a bit of a hurry, less than ideal.
This is the normal shoe.

Now imagine this shoe without the zipper pull, hard-to-impossible to grab the zipper piece with your bare fingers.
When she brought the shoe back I used a jump ring from this key chain (imagine a jump ring hanging off the end of the chain links).....

...and a part of an earring that I had found on the street....
(don't ask why I picked it up off the street, I don't even have an answer)

And thus we have a temporarily repaired shoe, with a little bit of bling.

Happy freestyling, and random shoe repair with jewelry bits and tiny tools.

Sewing machine cover, from leather couch cushions

Someone was throwing away an old couch, so old that the covering on the cushions and back was REAL LEATHER.  Not vinyl, not pleather, not 'bonded leather', but real 100% cowhide-- which had clearly been much used in its 30-year career as a couch.  Since it was destined for either landfill or creative reuse I decided to salvage it and see what could be made with such pieces.

Project #1 - sewing machine cover to replace the large plastic bag that had been serving as a cover for last year.....8? 10? years. Definitely time.

Luckily a sewing machine cover is not spatially complicated, but I did decide to add a pocket to the outside to hold odds and ends.

Here is an overhead view while deciding what pieces of leather to use.

More fiddling around, putting the existing cushion cover over the sewing machine to see how the leather would drape over the top.

The final product (with the hole for the top handle not visible).
Not the most cutesy or perfectly-seamed piece, but for my first time working with leather using the sewing machine I'm pleased how it turned out.  I'm also happy to have been able to salvage this natural material and extend its useful life.

Happy freestyling, reduce, REUSE REUSE REUSE, and then recycle.