In this work, a single step aquatic chemical growth process was employed to synthesize an array of zinc and copper acetate hydrate nanostructures, that can easily be transformed to Cu2O-ZnO structures by annealing in a mild temperature. To study these structures scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction was used, as well as Raman and UV/Vis spectroscopies were employed to study the morphology and crystal structure of the samples. The results show a pronounced threshold of Cu:Zn ratio, that, when crossed, favors the formation of primarily Cu2O doped with ZnO. However, before the threshold, a strong bias towards Cu2O-ZnO nanostructure formation is observed.