DIY Eyeshadow Palette

I wrote this post a few days ago, but it is pretty much irrelevant now as my awesome in-laws got me a collection of new eyeshadow palettes which I will show off with the second birthday haul post I now seem to require!  It's been a great one this year.  :)  Enjoy the tutorial, though, and if any of you reading had birthdays recently I hope yours was just as wonderful!

Lets not even lie.  We all have at least one of those MASSIVE eyeshadow palettes with something like half a billion colors on one huge, ungainly, usually pretty flimsy tray and on a day-to-day basis we don't use but a handful of the colors.

My solution was to take a small, really cute palette that had possibly the shittiest glitter and creme "eyeshadow" (using that term quite loosely as it was more like a lip gloss) and re-purposing the cute container for my most-used colors in the palette so I don't have to juggle the massive lunch-tray looking one every time I do my makeup.

Ok, so here is the tray containing the eyeshadow of shame.  I got excited to get rid of it and cleaned out 3 of them before I stopped to take the picture.  Cute container, though, solid pink on one side with a mirror and a little place for an applicator and I love how the front looks like bubbles.

First step, in case you haven't surmised, is remove the old, icky stuff from the palette of your choice.  I scooped it out with the applicator that came in it and into an old jar lid already bound for the trash as its accompanying jar seems to have gone on a joy ride somewhere.

Once your palette is empty, wash and dry it.

You will need:

• your current palette
• your new, clean, empty one
• some buttons or something else with a flat surface
• a few items with an interesting surface for pressing
• a small container to break the eyeshadow up in
• a straw
• some implements to break up and scoop out the eyeshadow 
• rubbing alcohol 
• tissues or clean wash rags

There are more tutorials on the internet for pressing eye shadows than you can shake a stick at, but here's how I did it:

First, break the color you want to add until it isn't stuck to the little metal pan anywhere anymore, then empty it into your small mixing container.  If you're wanting to make a new blend of colors, then add the two or three you want to mix.  The little holders on the pink palette were large enough to hold two of the other ones, so I mixed the two most similar blacks and the two most similar whites on the palette since I use those colors the most.

Crush up the eye shadow cake until it is more or less all powder and, if using two, until they are mixed to your liking.  Hint:  You don't want any big chunks.

Scoop the powder into a space in your new palette.

Press it down flat-ish with the tip of your finger.  You can either wash your hands before every pressing since this is going near your eyeballs and all, or you can be lazy like I did and wrap a coffee filter around the tip of your finger before pressing.

Dip your straw into the alcohol container with your finger covering the end so it will hold some of the alcohol.  Or use an eyedropper if you're getting fancy.  Add 3 or 4 drops to the pressed powder, just enough to moisten it.

Then, take a flat button and pat the eye shadow, being sure to get the edges as well, until it is flat.

Next, since I firmly believe everything should be as cute as possible, take buttons, or whatever you can find with an interesting pattern cut into it, and gently press that into the cake to leave an imprint.

Wipe off your stabby implement of choice and your crushing container and repeat with all your favorite, most-used colors.

Done!  Pretty quick and much more cute and easy to handle than the uber-palette.

<3WW