Upcycled Plastic Bottle to Make Up Brush Holder

Ok, so as you can maybe guess from this and my previous post,  I have been reorganising my make up and really wanted a holder to put my brushes in.  Anyway I decided to make one out of an old clear plastic bottle (2 litre type), the first thing I did was cut the bottle in half which was tall enough to contain the height of my brushes.

Here it is with the brushes.

Next I measured the circumference of the bottle, realised my pretty paper was a little to narrow to fit all the way around in one strip so had to do a little joining of pieces on to the bottle.

Ok, so here is the bottle with the strips of paper glued to it.  I added a layer of clear glaze (suitable for paper) on top of the paper and sprinkled a little gold and pink glitter on there as well.  

Now, you can see that the bottom of the bottle/brush holder is a weird shape, so I lightly sanded this with fine sandpaper (it helps the acrylic paint to adhere) and painted on some hot pink acrylic paint with a little glitter.  

Lastly I covered the paper joins and the top rim with some cute trims that I had spare.  I just added these with super glue.

 And voila, here is my upcycled plastic bottle turned make up holder.  I am thinking of adding a thin layer of clear varnish to the bit that I painted but will do that later :0)

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Depotting Sleek Make Up Eye Shadow Palettes into an Upcycled Pencil Tin

Ok, so I had 4 Sleek Make Up Eye Shadow Palettes and wanted all of the eye shadows in one container.

First of all I cleaned and spritzed this empty pencil tin with rubbing alcohol to sanitise it.  I have also seen people use the DVD or CD plastic cases with the black insert taken out and of course you could use any other suitable container with a lid you can think of.

Next, I took a piece of pretty glittery pink self adhesive film and on the reverse side, I drew around the shape of the pencil tin lid, adding a little "seam allowance" to cover the edges of the lid. Alternatively you could also use glue on pretty paper or fabric and could add trims, ribbons, embellishments, stickers etc 

This is the tin lid covered.  

The next bit is a little tricky and requires a lot of patience which I ran short of!  Take your palette and place it on a flat iron/hair straightener..or use a hair dryer...or a lighter with caution...just heat the bottom of the palette for about 30 seconds, this will help the glue on the eyeshadow pans to loosen.

You then want to use a safety pin and a pair of tweezers to gently tease the eyeshadow pan out of the palette case.

Here they are all done with a few accidents, if you dig into your eyeshadows add a couple of drops of rubbing alcohol to them and press them back down.

Next I took a piece of strong card and superglued all of the eyeshadow pans to the card and then stuck a little bluetack to the back of the card before popping it, along with the eyeshadows, into the tin.  

Some people stick their eyeshadows directly into the tin but I didn't want to do that as I want the tin to be reuseable.  Also I have seen other crafters use magnets or those little double sided spongy stickers and attach those to the back of each eyeshadow pan so that the tin can be reused once the eyeshadows are finished.

 Voila all done!  The most time consuming and fiddly bit was depotting the eyeshadows, I would advise putting old towels on your work surface AND the floor as you can end up with little bits all over the place & you can't see until you tread on them!!! not too hot with the black or darker eyeshadows!

Sleek Make Up Palettes

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Lekala Patterns Review 1...from Russia with Love?

Ok, so I have been toying with the idea of buying some of these Lekala downloadable sewing patterns for a while...so I bit the bullet and spent 5 euros for 10 patterns/units, a bargain...I will do an individual pattern review as I go along.  There's a great range of patterns on their site, some are really quite unusual and just to let you know the "knittings" section is for knits, it took me ages to suss this out and as I am rather partial to jersey fabric, this was great.

Anyway, in order to get your patterns you first need to purchase them via Soft Key, which I did and paid easily with Paypal.  Within a few minutes Soft Key sent me my account registration details (keep a note of them) and then the activation code needed to register with Lekala and then lastly the 15 digit number which Lekala require when purchasing your patterns.  It all sounds a bit complicated, but it was easy and all came through really quickly via email along with instructions for the next step...just remember to keep a note of your passwords and activation codes

The next thing I did, was decide on my patterns (you don't need to choose them all at once, just keep a note of how many units/patterns you have used and  your "password for the construction of patterns") clicked to order and entered my measurements in centimetres and the 15 digit passcode.  I chose the patterns without a seam allowance as I think this option counts for 2 units/patterns instead of the 1 unit without the seam allowance included.  Its easy to add the seam allowance in whilst you're sticking together and cutting out your pattern.

I chose the patterns to be sent to me in PDF format, A4 sized paper and they all arrived within an hour of entering the details, fab.  The patterns are really easy and simple to print off and stick together (not too many pages either, I think the biggest is 30 pages but most tops and simple dresses are like 14 pages), I printed with no scaling at 100% actual size.

I copied and pasted the instructions and the photo of each pattern from the Lekala website (some of which were dodgy Russian to English translations lol) into Word and saved under the pattern number.  Even though some of the translation is a little peculiar, if you have basic common sense and some sewing experience, you can get by...I hope!!!!

Well, that is all I can report for now and I am happy with the service speed and process of receiving the patterns and will report back once I get down to sewing individual pieces. Pin It