Spring Decoden Moisturiser Case Project

Today is just a little decoden project! I did my moisturiser case 😀

This little thing of moisturiser was a gift from Mr and Mrs DinoSlippers a long time ago and it was such a convenient size that I just kept refilling it. After a while I thought I should decorate it and make it extremely pretty and impractical because I liked it so much haha!

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I peeled off the labels and cleaned it up.

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I then glued on the larger pieces.

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The centre piece is a cameo that I needle felted when I first started felting! The tiny deer are were a little gift from Sefie! So cute 😀

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I did a row of larger pearls around the edge of the lid.

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Then the rest was filled in with jewels and pearls.

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All done! I love Spring themed things. And also, how cute is the tiny deer??

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Decoden Laptop Tutorial- It’s Finally Finished!

I have been trying to decoden my laptop since around 2008. How embarrassing is that! Especially because since then I’ve gone through 3 laptops and managed to finish… none of them *_*

But look, I finally did it!!!

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I think what stopped me for so long was lack of design inspiration. I have seen many deco laptops over the years but none of the designs really jumped out at me. I wanted something special that was perfectly my taste and I wouldn’t get bored with after 10 minutes.

But first let me show you how to protect your gadgets before you deco them so you don’t damage the actual product.

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You need clear book covering contact and scissors. Start by cleaning your item and making sure it’s completely dry.

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Cut a piece of contact which is a few inches bigger than your surface.

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Fold the edge over a few inches.

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Peel back to reveal the sticky side of the contact to the fold.

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Carefully stick it down to the edge of your surface and make sure it’s completely straight and has no bubbles. It’s important to get this foundation right otherwise you will have a lot of trouble with airbubbles on the rest of the surface.

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Gently pull the paper away from the contact and press it down using something flat like a ruler or piece of cardboard to make sure there are no bubbles.

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So now you’ve got this, smooth but lots of overhand to get rid of.

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For the corners, cut a bit diagonally and smooth down. My corners were curved so I had to cut further in.

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Snip around the edges very closely.

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Done!

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Shiny and protected from dust and glue now!

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So deco time!

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It took me quite a while to decide what to do with it so I started the design at the center.

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From there it kind of evolved into a chandelier design.

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And just became more elaborate.

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It was at this point that I got a bit stuck design-wise and it stayed half done for around a year. I had to take it traveling and it got a bit destroyed. Small stones which aren’t part of a larger design are less stable and more likely to be knocked off.

Then a few weeks ago I decided that it was time to bite the bullet and finally finish it. This is the year of finishing long term projects after all 😀

Here are two instagram videos of how I did it:


I’m so glad to be done with it!!

 

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My favorite part is when the Apple logo glows it looks like the cameo behind the chandelier is glowing!

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The design ended up being quite art deco!

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Clearly I’ve been watching far  too many eps of Poirot lately, as if there is such a thing!

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I’m so happy with how it turned out… and to be able to cross it off my list after so many years. Now it’s time to start some new projects!

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Bunny and Pearl iPhone 5 Case Decoden

Just a quick video while I edit the rest of my backlog. A lot of people asked for a tutorial on how I did the decoden on my phone case so this time I actually filmed a video and included the basics. Spreading the glue out like this is the quickest technique but it’s a lot neater if you place a dot of glue on each jewel as you go. .
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A blog and Youtube channel about a girl and her quest to make everything sparkle. New craft, hair and beauty tutorials every week!

Violet LeBeaux spends most of her time trying to think of ways to make life prettier, posting said ways on her blog and drinking very strong tea. She writes about big hair cute things, girly fashion, beauty finds, sometimes Hime Gyaru fashion (姫ギャル) and crafty tutorials.

She lives with her adorable boyfriend Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.

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Music: Garageband unless otherwise credited

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How to make a decoden bling bunny phone case.
Today I’ll show you guys how I made my decoden iPhone case.
It’s Spring themed and uses a Bergamot Bunny charm.
First lay the main design out so you can see how it looks.
Mix equal parts of epoxy glue.
Make sure to mix it evenly.
Cover the backs of the large piece and glue down.
Draw small lines of glue down from the small flowers and add mini green jewels as stems.
Repeat with the taller flowers and larger green jewels.
You can either place lines of glue or dot each jewel with glue as you place it.
Do the largest flower with even larger jewels.
Add some small lines of mini green jewels randomly as grass.
Now flip to the other end and go all around the edges and camera hole with pearls.
Now it’s just a matter of filling everything in with more pearls.
Work from the outside into the middle.
Try to only do small sections at a time.
You can move the last few pearls around so everything fits nicely and there are no gaps.
Allow to dry and it’s done.
That’s it! Just let it dry properly overnight.
DONE!
Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and thanks for watching!

How I Blinged My iPhone 5

The last few times I’ve posted about deco-ing my iPhone there have been a lot of requests for tutorials. I’ve done a lot of deco tutorials over the years but I’ve never been able to do a video because usually deco-ing the thing that I film with XD

This time however I was just doing a case so I filmed the whole thing on my phone. YAY!

The video is below but here are some tips and answers to questions I get quite a lot:

What glue are you using?

2 part 5 minute epoxy. You can buy it at any hardware store, this one is from Daiso.

How long does this take?

Depending on the complexity it usually only takes a few hours.

Where do you buy the parts?

Bergamot Charms are available through my Etsy store. I buy locally at junk stores, sometimes I buy from ebay, Full Moon Deco is great for parts and run by a super nice lady.

Where did you get the clear case?

Ebay.

How are you picking up the pearls/jewels?

I use either a cuticle stick with a tiny bit of water on the end for tiny jewels or reverse tweezers for regular ones.

How long does it last?

If you use epoxy it will last a very good while especially if you take care of it. I’ve had things (cameras mostly) which have lasted for years.

What if I make a mistake?

Don’t deco directly to an item if you are worried about making mistakes, put down a layer of clear contact first. You can easily remove contact if you don’t like the final design.


It’s kind of cool seeing all of this in fast motion! If you have any other questions feel free to leave them in the comments 😀

Pink Bling Decoden iPhone 4 Case

I don’t know why I can’t seem to settle on a phone design XD This one I think will be sticking around for a long time because I really love it. It’s over the top and completely impractical which I think is a little bit me!

And this one has my initial on it which is very much me 😀

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Enjoy some iphone deco picture spam before I get into how I did it ^_^

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So before anyone asks again, I use epoxy glue. That’s the kind I prefer to use for deco. You can use other types too, E9000 is very popular but I prefer epoxy because it’s cheap, does the job and is readily available.

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Step one was to decide on the outside design. I prefer to do the outsides and work inwards because then you have no problems with uneven borders.

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Next I laid out the rough design. I left the basic design on the case because it made an interesting effect on some of the clear gems. The bow and it’s ribbon trails are the biggest focal point of this design.

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One by one I glued on the large pieces.

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Next I did the V. I didn’t have the black jewels in many sizes so I just painted a couple of purple ones with nail polish. Easy fix!

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Once that was done I started paving from the bottom up. Again I prefer to start at the bottom edge and move up because any gaps can be hidden under the bow but having gaps at the bottom edges really sucks.

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I used a mixture of pink crystals and pearls along with some tiny pearl beads to fill gaps and random black jewels as spots.

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I paved all the way up to the bow.

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Then continued over to the other side once it’s all dry. With paving techniques like this it’s better to do it one section at a time so you’re not trying to move everything at once or having pieces slip into the wrong place when they dry.

And done!

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The whole thing took around 2 hours, the biggest chunk of time was actually deciding on the design because I was being so indecisive. After I was finished I really wasn’t sure I liked it at all so I added a Bergamot charm and that really finished off the look and tied in all of the black pieces. Over all I think this is my favorite design so far on my phone!

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What do you guys think?

New Decoden iPhone 4 Case

My iphone case was getting a bit beaten up and dirty so it was time to change it up for something new and fun!

The end result!

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This was something I’d thought about for a while because my current style is trying to talk the line between super cute and a little bit older and classier. I want a phone which can be super cute every day but one that I won’t need to worry about pulling out in a meeting XDSo what is the solution!?INTERCHANGEABLE SLIDING CASES!I bought this cute phone case on ebay for $5, the same one in stores here is $30 >_< Ebay for the win!

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Anyway the cool thing about this case is that it comes apart and the back plate slides out so you can remove the back plate without having to take the whole case off. They sell a lot of different designs which are classy and quite understated but this means there’s the possibility of carrying different plates and switching out on the occasion 😀 You  could even have different ones depending on outfits! WIN.

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So I didn’t want to wait another few weeks to get different plates posted and they didn’t have any blingy ones so I decided to make my own from scratch.

You need:

  • An old sketch book with a plastic cover
  • Scalpel and scissors
  • Coloured pencil
  • Bling
  • Epoxy glue
  • Paint matching your plate

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You need something hard to use for the face plate. Plastic is good so I recycled an old sketchbook cover, it’s the perfect width to fit into the grooves of the case.

I traced around the edge of the original plate to get the shape.

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This is where the coloured pencil is useful because it shows up on the black sketchbook.

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After cutting it out and placing it into the case it looked like this:

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Yay! Now you need to cut out a hole for the camera 😀 Again trace with the pencil.

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Mine next to the original!

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Done! Now it’s time for the deco to begin 😀 Deco looks best if you have the same colour base, because it’s so dark I used a white acrylic base coat first.

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Then painted it pink with nail polish.

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So before I could go any further I had to remove the old deco on my phone. Some of you guys asked when I originally did it whether the contact would really protect the phone… the answer is yes so let’s see how much!

I VERY carefully slid a scalpel around the edges between the contact and the phone. I angled it a little upwards at all times so as to avoid scratching the phone. Seriously, if you’re going to this please be extremely careful.

Because the contact was covered with epoxy glue to hold on the gems it was very hard and easily popped up straight away once I wiggled it a bit.

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I managed to remove the entire piece without damaging it 😀

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Aaaand crappy photo but my phone doesn’t have a scratch on it. In fact it’s in far better condition than the front is XD

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In fact, I made yet another face plate using the deco I removed by resticking it to a white piece of paper and then another plate I cut out. WIN!

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Aaanyway, back to deco-ing the new one.

First up I lined up the large pieces and glued them down with epoxy. These are bits of necklaces that BGDino sent me!

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I wanted to make sure that I didn’t deco too far around the edges so I kept it in the outside case from this point on. Next I added pearls and other large pieces around the edges of the necklace.

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And filled the rest in with some small diamantes.

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Super simple design.

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And the best part is I can make as many of these as I like and change it up often!

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I’ll never get bored 😀

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I’m going to try making some painted ones next too 😀

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You could even change them depending on how big the handbag you’re using is haha! Little for dinners and then big for and everyday bag XD

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Hope you guys enjoyed! What do you think my next design should be? I could do a Bergamot one!!