Tutorial: Painted Glitter Heels

Glitter shoes became immensely popular quite fast, but they seemed like such a pain with the layers upon layers of mod podge, glitter, mod podge, glitter, mod podge.. Not to mention when you walk it would crease the fabric and you would lose your glitter..

These shoes are much more subtle, and guaranteed to not lose glitter on me! Plus it's the perfect way to spruce up a pair of nude pumps and give them some more 'oomph!'. 

I chose my base colour as a frosty mint, and added two coats to the back of the shoes. I also painted the back of the heel itself, but stopped at the area that touches the ground. No point in painting that part, I say.

I let those two coats dry overnight to ensure that they were, in fact, dry. After that I started on the glitter coats. The first coat does a light splattering of glitter. The second coat really pumps it up because the first coat gives it a rough feel so the glitter really has something to stick to. And, if any spots were missed, your base coat will take care of that and no one will notice!

I smoothed out the glitter and made sure it was all laying flat, and now they're ready to go!

Easy peasy, now go rock your new glam kicks!!!

Note: You should clean the area before painting, and tape off the parts of the shoe you don't want painted just in case. I had no tape so I made sure to be extra careful. 

The two brands of nail polish I used are ones I found here in China. They're soooooo nice, I want to buy every colour the store has!

A Day (and a half) In The Making

Phew! As I type this up I'm struggling since my fingers are so sore and probably slightly swollen. I made myself a new purse the other day and it had a little bit of hand sewing to finish it off and my fingers dislike me now for it. I started working on the pattern the other night after supper, and started the purse right from when I got up in the morning, with only breaks for food. I wasn't stopping until it was done.

Totally worth it.

BAM! Check it.

My old record purse was falling apart and I wanted something new. Record purses don't fare well in the winter anyway (the records crack much easier) and I used this one far past the point of it looking good or being responsible. One of the straps was worn away to just threads and it was going to let go any day.

I kept seeing people around with these really good looking bags, with two huge side pockets and a zipped pocket in the middle. After searching 'purses' on pinterest and scrolling for ages, I finally found a reference picture to go by.

Not the most helpful of pictures without zoom..

From there I sketched out the pattern (which took a while, I kept getting stuck on one piece until my fella miraculously solved the mystery!) and made a pattern to size.

One of the pieces.

From there it was pretty basic putting together-ness..

And after ages I finally got my finished product!!

From the side. My zipper pull will always be a key. 

I love the detail on the strap. It's simple but came out looking great. 

The outer pockets are lined with snap closures.

Top down. 3 huge pockets!! This purse holds everything, it's fantastic.

Since we were taking pictures of the purse anyway, I wanted to get one of my shirt.. I seriously love this pattern, it's so comfy and fits like a dream!

But because I'm a nut case, one thing led to another and we ended up taking blurry pictures of me being a moron.

If you actually sat through this ridiculously long post, thank you! 

Favourite Things: Winter Edition

Okay, it's cold out. Officially. I have switched out of my moto jacket and into my winter coat. Scarves, hats and gloves are now not only fashionable but necessary.  My favourite things this season?

Cozy winter tights in all sorts of colours and patterns. I'm waiting on this pair to come in the mail. (Ebay, if you're wondering)

Cranberry scented everything! My collection of cranberry scents includes parfume, hand lotion, lipgloss, and this home fragrance oil. Mmmmm.

Cute outfits with cozy sweaters.

This insane sweater! Now I normally don't like this style of sweater much (people make a lot of bad color choices with them I find, neon pink and purple and floor length? Guh!) but the colors in this one are gorgeous. So much so that I am planning a trip to Value Village on their sale day (Nov 19th for Canadians) to get as many brown sweaters as I can to make this. 

The Body Shops new highlighter pencils. I have the palest one, it's a beautiful creamy shimmery highlight that is going to be a regular in my makeup collection this season.

My Purple Urchin mango body butter. It smells amazing and feels just as nice. Support local, make healthy choices with your skin care, and check these ladies out!

And an awesome tutorial I have coming up for you for some super cute holiday jewelry! But you won't see that until after the craft fair when I have everything done. ;)

Mani Monday: Saran Wrap

Have you seen this kind of nail yet? You put your base coat down (2 coats of black) then add a top coat of whatever color (this strange beetle green) and while its when you pat your nail with scrunched up saran wrap. It's kind of cool, I must say, and super easy to do, though I did pat a couple nails on my right hand too soon and it took off a bit of the black as well.. Not really noticeable though.

The Sky Is The Limit

I am really starting to love all the galaxy DIY projects that are going on right now. It's nice to see such an underestimated thing of beauty (this whole wide galaxy of ours!) being appreciated. Here's my favourite galaxy tutorials to share with you!

Tutorial 

Bleach tshirt

Please if you have the source for this.. All I can find is dead links and tumblr posts

These are gorgeous! I think I should start making envelopes out of everything..

You Spin Me Right Round

I've been super super busy the past while (finally got a bed frame after almost a year of a mattress on the floor), I'm going to be starting a new part time job this weekend, family is coming to visit, and a whole slew of other things in between. I'm a bit stressed and nervous to say the least, but if I'm not scared, then it's probably not something worth doing in life, right?

One day I did find some time for myself to have fun I ended up whipping up these pendants. All made out of cut pieces of vinyl records. They're more an experiment than anything else, and a learning process, but I think I can have a lot of fun with this once I learn to make everything a bit neater. Until then, I share these with you!

Tutorial: Geometric Necklace

You can make your own geometric shaped necklace in ~10 minutes with 4 things that you probably already have.

Materials:
A chain
Strong glue
Sandpaper
And... Staples?!

How to:

-Get your staples. I like the colourful kinds myself and thought the 3 colours went nicely together. Break the staple sticks (for lack of a better word) into the lengths that you want.

-Sand the corners where it will touch your skin.. Don't want you getting scratched! I found a fine grain sandpaper and just a couple swipes worked fine.

-Glue the pieces together by putting glue on the shorter piece and pushing them together. I also put some glue across the whole back part to keep them together a bit better. I think a popcicle stick would fit there really good to make it super sturdy but alas.. I had no popcicles. Make sure you don't put so much glue so that it pushes out to the front area.

-Add glue along the edge and press the chain into it. Let dry and you're set!

There are so many possibilities! I'd love to see your versions if you try this.

Scarf Fun

When I was a child we used to have 2 big bags of scarves that I would wrap around myself in various ways and make all sorts of outfits with, and my mom has dozens of pictures in an album of this. That's part of the reason why I love how scarves as clothing are coming back in fashion. Tie them together, tie them around yourself.. They're lightweight, come in many patterns, and super versatile!

D&G Summer 2012

Link to tute no longer working on the Glamourai page, if you have a good link I'd love it.

I went to Value Village today and got a couple cute scarves that I wanted to remodel into shirts, here's to hoping they turn out good!