Posts Tagged ‘Decoden’

I’m writing this in between frantically packing things for Melbourne so do excuse me if I seem a little rushed!

Everyone has requested photos of my latest deco projects so here they are! There are a LOT of photos because I’m really proud of this one!

I bought a new leather phone case for my iphone Ruri and it’s taken me a while to settle on a design but here it is in all it’s glory

Front:

Close up of the front:

Gigantic feature piece which was originally a brooch:

Side view:

The back side thingy:

Heehee this is my little Yorshire Terrier doggie screen cleaner:

Crown charm:

The inside!

The closure which used to be a hair clip:

On the inside is a mirror for on the go touch ups ^_^

The side and the back:

Back:

Close up of the back with a cute cupcake charm that used to be a hair clip ^_^

Heehee I love this ribbon!

I’ve got to say that I am beyond happy with how this turned out, every time I look at it I get a huge smile! Makes me love using my iphone even more!

Last view of the back:

One of the other projects I’ve done lately is my glasses! That’s right all the hours I spent in front of the screen writing tutorials means I need glasses >_<

But how damn cute did they turn out?

Lastly if you were following me on Twitter you would have heard that I lost my absolute favorite scarf ever on the weekend I keep it tied to my hand bag and it fell off somewhere in a shopping centre, I didn’t even realize until we got home

But the good part of that is that I got to go scarf shopping again

What I bought:

Cute red scarf to match my bag- $3 from Footprints Op shop

Hand Painted silk scarf  from the Salvos- $2

Yay for new things! I also got a very interesting wallet at the same shop but that’s reserved for another post ^_^ I love op shops!

Hope you enjoyed my deco spam, I promise I’ll reply to all of your lovely comments as soon as I get a second to relax and ‘ll update again once we’re in Melbourne <3

Well I promised you all a competition and here it is!

To celebrate relocating my blog to my own domain I’m offering you all a chance to win the headphones I deco’d for today’s tutorial, all you need to do is spread the word about my new blog!

About the prize:

These headphones are completely new, I tested them to make sure they worked but have never worn them. According to the box they are “HiFi Stereo” but I haven’t tested that. They have a standard 3.5mm jack. Other specs from the back of the box are available on request.

I used epoxy glue, acrylic diamantes, a large heart bead and a pink ribbon bow to decorate them. They are decorated by hand and are therefore unique and with the imperfections that come with hand made items.

The winner will receive a hand written letter from me as well

How to enter:

Because the site is quite new I want to get the word out about it so to enter for a chance of winning I need your help telling as many people about the new site as possible…

All you need to do to enter the draw is comment and leave an email address for me to contact you through. If you tweet or blog about it please leave another comment with links for me to see

Comment = 1 entry
Follow me via Google Friend Connect or RSS = 1 entry
Tweet about it = 2 extra entries
Blog about it = 5 extra entries

Eg.
If you follow me and comment to let me know you get 2 entries.
If you follow me, comment and write a blog entry you get 7 entries.

^_^

This competition is open to anyone no matter where you live.

The winner will be drawn randomly so the more entries you have the more chances to have to win.

This competition will close on Midnight Friday 18th of December 2009 (Brisbane, Australia time). The winner will be announced the following Monday and contacted by email.

Enjoy!

Good luck everyone!

Hello! Wow I can’t believe it’s already the last day of my super awesome week of tutorials! It feels like I’ve been at my new address for much longer and I’m loving it!

I’ve been promising a deco tutorial for ages, it was going to be my laptop but I decided to go with a smaller design to start off some of you guys that are beginners

The fun part about this tutorial is that you can win the end product, but more on that later!

So first you need some headphones! I bought these ones to do, they are just fairly standard ear buds, the only thing special about them is that the coloured outside bit clips on and you can change colour… cool idea but they only included one of each colour so you can’t have a matching set >_< I didn’t even notice until I got home!

Apologies that these photos are a little dark, James was out when I did it so I didn’t have his lighting/camera expertise!

The deco technique I’ll be showing you today is called paving.

I decided to make one headphone pink and one blue so I attached the corresponding colour clip.

Gather all of your materials and decorations together. I suggest that you lay down some paper towel or tissues to work on so you can see everything easily and you don’t get your work surface all glue-y.

The type of glue I am using is called “Epoxy”, it comes in 2 tubes one is resin and one is hardener. There are other types of glue available for deco but epoxy is the strongest and most hard wearing, if you use a decent amount your jewels won’t be going anywhere! Epoxy is good for rigid surfaces (like plastic), it is not good for things that need to bend (like fabric). It comes in different formulas which take different lengths of time to dry, for a project like this use the 5min one. Also unlike some other glues it doesn’t smell bad so you won’t pass out from the fumes ^_^

We need to start with the largest items we’re going to glue. That’s an important rule of paving deco, put the big pieces in and then fill the gaps with everything else.

So squeeze out an even amount of glue from each tube onto a piece of plastic. I just used the packet that some of my diamantes came in.

Using an orange stick mix the two bubbles of glue together. Make sure the consistency is even and it’s mixed well.

I’m going to put a bow on my pink headphone first so using the orange stick I apply a little glue to the back of the bow and also to the headphone where it’s going.

Hold it in place until the glue becomes tacky then allow it to dry completely.

Repeat the process on the other side. I decided to use a bead shaped like a heart on this one. Apply the glue…

Hold the jewel in place.

For paving you need a lot of jewels in different sizes. Rather than buying 1000 of each size if you are doing a small project like this check the scrapbooking section of your local craft store for pre-stuck designs like the photo below. It has many different sizes.

Because they already have a sticky backing on them, they’re fairly useless to glue, you’ll find that if you use the provided sticky back they will eventually slide off your item or if you glue them with the backing on they will still fall off because the glue isn’t touching the actual jewel. So you need to gently pull the sticky backing off… I stick it to my finger and use my nail to pry them free.

And you should be left with this:

Now for this project you need some larger coloured diamantes too..

To pick up the diamantes one by one I find the easiest way is using a match stick with a piece of blutac on the end. New blutac is too sticky so roll it on carpet or fabric first so it picks up some dust and isn’t as sticky ^_^ Other people I know use tweezers but I find that awkward.

Starting with the pink bud add glue to a small strip down the back.

Starting with the largest jewels again place a line of 3mm pink diamantes straight down the back.

While the glue around it is still wet fill in around the edges with tiny clear diamantes. The key to this looking good is to try to fill in every single little gap as much as you can. Wait for it to dry before continuing.

Once the back is dry continue on the side,place a row of large pink diamantes and fill in around it with clear. It’s kind of like making a mosaic, trying to find the right gems to fit the right spot.

When that side is dry continue around to the other side until the jewels meet in the middle, the entire thing should be covered. When you’re done it should look a little like this:

Now let’s start on the other side! The principle is the same, but this time use blue jewels instead of pink ^_^

Do the sides first and then keep going until the jewels meet in the middle.

Once everything is completely dry it’s time to tackle that last little white bit where the cord comes from…

Holding it by the ear piece cover that in clear diamantes.

So then leave it to dry! If you think it needs it, you can give the entire jeweled area a clear top coat. I don’t generally do it because if you are using acrylic jewels it can melt the top layer and make the facets of the jewel less obvious. If you decide to top coat then go with a quick dry clear nail polish. This is what you end up with when you’re done…

Haha you can tell that James can home and took these pictures because they’re so arty!

I think pastel blue and pink look so cute together ^_^

You can see the paving a little more clearly here…

I hope you enjoyed this and it helped! If you have any questions feel free to ask and I’ll do my best to answer

Now if you love the ones I made and can’t be bothered making your own you have a chance to win them! Click here to see how you can get your pretty hands on them ^_^