DIY Gift Bag Re-Vamp

This is a super quick and easy craft with only after pictures as it is just that simple!

I am a craft-hoarder.  I save damn near everything thinking "someday, I'll need that for a project", so I tend to have boxes, bags, canisters - you name it - of random odds and ends all over the place.  One of the things I'd saved were 2 bags from Bath and Body Works.  I loved the blue checker print and thought they were too cute and wanted to use them for gifts, but didn't want the label on them.

Quick fix!  A glue gun and some pretties!

I glued on some of the muslin strips I have for waxing and added some bows and felt roses.

Cute and easy and saved us from buying a few of the ugly, generic gift bags you see everywhere.

I do believe that catches me up on holiday-related posts...finally.  Now to work on more reviews, and there are tons and tons of those on their way.

<3 WW

Quick Earring Fix

I have seriously allergy-prone skin.  This constantly irks me as all the cute earrings I see are made of cheap metals that break me out something terrible, so I came up with a simple solution so I could wear the cheap cute earrings and not have the skin issues.

On the left, we have a cute pair of Hello Kitty earrings I got at the flea market for 2 bucks.  Those hooks would cause my skin to have nightmares.  On the right is a pair of sterling silver hooks I got at a craft store.  I attached some claw clasps to the hoops on the end of the hooks where the earrings would attach.  Now, I buy all the cheap and cute earrings I want, pull the hooks off with a pair of pliers, then clip them onto the silver clasps.  One pair of silver clasps that I can use with about 15 different earrings I've picked up here and there for a dollar or so a pair!

Easy fix!

<3WW

Kleancolor Eyeshadow - Swatches and Review

This is yet another eye shadow palette I'd bought before I knew I'd be receiving that major box of awesome goodies my friend sent.  I'm glad I did, though.  It is a wonderful palette for the price and I'd not have bought it had I already gotten all the amazing products and would have missed out.

This is just labeled Kleancolor Starry Eye.  There were 3 or 4 different ones and they were $2 each.  I got this one because I love pink eye shadow, but have a lot of trouble finding it, especially in pigmented colors.

Bright and preeeety.  I was pleasantly surprised by this palette.  I know Kleancolor is a cheapie brand, and I do love their nail polishes, but often those cheapie brands seem to do one thing well and all else sucks.  I didn't hold out much hope.

However, the colors are nice and bright and pigmented.  This was taken in sunlight, so the colors look much darker and more pigmented on, there is less fallout than ELF shadows (though I do like ELF), and they have a great shimmer than ELF can't even seem to touch.  Obviously, there is really no comparison with the high-end brands that were in the awesome box, so I'll just compare them to ELF and drugstore brands that I usually buy and can afford on our budget...And I have to say, this is my new favorite, go-to cheapie.

All in all, if you're looking for fun, cheap, pigmented shadows that come in hard-to-find colors, I'd say this is your best bet.

<3
Wookie Wifey

Makeup Box Re-Vamp

One of my more recent thrift store finds was this box:

A nice, flat box good for stashing craft goodies for only a dollar.  Problem?

Its FUGLY!  (But I can totally fix that.)

I used this Tulip soft fabric paint in black.  I've now officially lost count of the amount of projects I've gotten out of this one tube.  It cost about $4, so it is completely worth it and I will be buying more in the future.

The first thing I did was started putting the paint on the furry part.  I was going to do the fuzzy part black and the rest in a different color, at first, then realized I didn't have any other paint and nail polish wasn't going to cut it on something this size.

I used a q-tip with the paint and sort of pressed and rubbed it into the faux fur so it covered well.  It took me 2-3 coats to get it completely black.  Once that was dry and I was happy with it, I painted the rest black with a makeup sponge since my craft stash sucks right now and I seem to not have any brushes, but I neglected to take a picture of that step.

Note:  The fabric paint doesn't usually harden fabric much at all, but did harden the faux fur so it isn't all soft now, but honestly, it wasn't all that appealing to begin with, so I'm not so heart-broken over that.

Since everything needs embellishment and/or glitter, I used glitter glue to start drawing on little designs.

 Then I added some flowers to the swirls...

Here's what it looks like dry.

Here's the close-up.  I ended up putting a clear glitter nail polish coat over the top part with the swirls only because this is dollar store glitter glue, so it sheds when it dries and I wanted to stop the glitter-shedding as much as possible as there is already so much glitter all over the house from my projects.  Oops.

Didn't add a picture with the clear/holo glitter coat as it didn't show up in photos and looked the same.  >.<  I opted not to paint the inside, either, since it will be closed 90% of its life.

That's it!  Now its ready to be used and it is now my new marker case.

<3 WW

Heng Fang Eyeliner Review

Hubs got me a few makeup items for my birthday before the huge box-o-awesome showed up, so here's a review on one of them.  :)  He'd ordered me Coty Airspun powder, which is awesome, smells amazing, and the women in my family have used this stuff going back 4 generations that I know of.  There wasn't any powder in the box-o-awesome, so its all good, I needed this anyway!  ^_^

The other thing he'd ordered me was this Heng Fang gel eyeliner.  Its obviously a Dolly Wink knock off, and I knew it was a knock off when I told him I wanted it, so I'm not disappointed about that at all.  In fact, I'm not disappointed about anything about it.

I'd never tried gel liner of any sort and I think this was like $3 or $4 with shipping and all on Amazon so I decided it would be a good place to start.

There's plenty of product for the price and that packaging is just way too cute.  The brush that came with it actually isn't bad, but I used my MAC brush when I tried it out on my eyes.

It has a nice texture and is goes on very black.

And it goes on quite precise and has a longer drying time than the liquid liners I'm used to using, so you have more time to move it and play with it a bit before it sets.  That line was done with the brush that came with the liner, so you can see it gives a nice clean, clear line.

I like this quite a bit and will probably order more if I ever need to in the future.

So many reviews to post soon!  *.*

<3
WookieWifey

DIY Hot Glue Gun Plate

This idea stems from my life-long goal to make all the things cute.  Even the useful ones.  I'd seen lots of things bumbling around on the interwebz about baking sharpies onto coffee cups and such and it being washable, safe, etc.  I decided to use this tactic to attack the plain white salad plate I use for a hot glue gun rest.

Here's the salad plate...And my markers.  Some are Sharpies, but some I got from dollar stores so they are just labeled "permanent marker" although some of the slicker dollar store brands I have in this photo are labeled "Shoupie".  Oh yeah.  Be sure to clean the plate well so there isn't any glue or paint drips left on it as they will turn black in the oven, but you'll get to see that later.

First, I just started drawing on what I decided I wanted on the plate.

Then, I kept adding things until I liked the way it looked.  It isn't fancy, but I can't draw well at all, so this is what I ended up with.

Finally, I scribbled a stripey, colorful border, then it was into the oven for 30 minutes at 400 degrees...because I couldn't remember what the actual time/temperature was from any of the stuff I'd read and was far too lazy to be bothered to look it up.

The actual Sharpies didn't fade much at all, as you can see, but the off brand ones faded quite badly.  Its okay, though, it is still very cute and a big improvement on the plain white plate.  The dark spots are where there was super glue drips and things I couldn't get off of the plate and they turned black in the oven.  >.<

<3 WookieWifey

Zebra Nail Art

This tutorial is so simple as zebra print is maybe the easiest thing ever to do on nail art.  I figured this out on my own, accidentally, trying to do French tips about 10 years ago and have used it ever since.  Needless to say, the French tips didn't work out so well, but I'd discovered how to do zebra print, so I still count that as a win.  This is sort of a quickie tutorial as it is a request so I wanted to get it posted as soon as the Holiday craziness ended.

To prove that I actually can do French tips now, I figured I'd start with that and just zebra the tip of the accent nail, lol.  I'm using L.A. Colors Art Deco in black.  Any nail art polish or regular opaque one with a nail art brush should do just fine, though.

First, start on one side and draw a little line.  It doesn't need to be straight, in fact it looks better if the lines have a bit of wave to them, and should naturally taper off at the end when you lift the brush  but if it doesn't that's okay - that's the awesome thing about animal prints is they don't have to look perfect and sometimes if they are a little imperfect it makes it look better.

Then, from the other side, add  stripe or two and alternate with a stripe or two on each side until you're done.  You can add a few swipes in the middle if you want.  The point is to just make it look random and natural.

And there we go!  That's all there is to it!  This is so much simpler than using nail decals, IMO...Although, I do like the stickers I reviewed as there was no drying time and they lasted forever.  However, for 8 bucks a box, I'll keep doing it the old fashioned way.

A tip - You don't want a lot of product on the brush.  That picture up there...baaaad.  You have to really watch these nail art brushes as they have a tendency to drip down from the stem of the brush while you're getting your art on and leave a big blob on things if you aren't careful.

This is closer to what you want - enough to paint on, but with little to no excess.  I re-dip the brush after every stripe or two rather than loading the brush up and running the risk of screwing up my stripes.

Hope that's simple and I'd love to see pictures if anyone tries it!  :)

<3
WW