Tag Archives: DIY

DIY – Using an ELF Compact as a Travel Eyeshadow Palette

DIY Freestyle compact – with 4 Inglot shadows and one WnW

 

I’ve recently had good luck with several ELF products, but I do find the brand hit-or-miss. However, even when I have a miss with a product in a compact, I’ve figured out a way to repurpose the compact that makes it worth the $1.50 to $3 that I paid!

Take this translucent mattifying powder that I recently purchased – it looked fine at first:

 

But, after a swipe or two with the sponge, this was revealed:

 

Very lumpy, bumpy, and not my kind of powder! So, I took a knife and pried it the pan out of the compact; I wasn’t careful, because I was planning to toss the powder. However, ELF pans are very loosely attached with glue, so if you are careful, you can remove them without harming the powder – or you can do the second step (show below) first, then use heat to loosen the glue.

After the pan was removed, I was left with this:

ELF compact – no pan

Then, I took my knife again, and pried the insert out of the pan, which left me with an empty pan with just a tiny spot of glue in it:

Empty ELF Compact

And you’re done! This whole process takes less than five minutes, and you are left with a sturdy, small compact with a mirror. You can glue in a magnetic sheet to make a magnetic freestyle compact; use doubleside tape to stick in pans, or just glue in the pans. I made my mom a small compact of eyeshadows and glued in the pans with the first one I did, and haven’t used the second one yet – I’ll probably end up using double-sided tape.

Here’s the first photo again, as an example of how you can fill the compact. These pans aren’t attached, I’ve just placed them in the compact to demonstrate. Four Inglot eyeshadows fit in really nicely, leaving a little bit of space for a Wet n Wild or similarly sized eyeshadow.

 

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This post is from Project Swatch. All rights reserved.

DIY: How To Franken Your Own Jelly Nail Polish

DIY Jelly Nail Polish Franken

DIY Jelly Franken

I’ve been playing around with nail polish a lot lately, and I’ve been getting interested in frankening. Thus far, I haven’t gone so far as to buy suspension base & glitters to make my own nail polish from scratch, but I’ve been combining store-bought nail polishes to create new colors and finishes.

My most recent adventure – and most successful polish to date – was a super-easy combination of clear polish with a coral creme to make a jelly polish.  Depending on the light, the polish looks either orange or strawberry.  On my swatch wheel, I have one, two, three, four coats of my franken, the a full-strength coat of the creme I used – Revlon Delicious, from the Colorstay line.

Jelly Franken Supplies

Jelly Franken Supplies

Making this polish was super simple; I started off with a bottle of Wet n Wild clear polish, and poured out half.  Then, I added some of Revlon Delicious – I’d guess less than a quarter bottle; so the ratio was about 2/3 clear and 1/3 creme polish, though I’m not exactly sure.  I left space at the top of the bottle, so I could shake it up and mix it easily.

When I swatched it on my nail wheel, it was a bit streaky:

So, I added some nail polish thinner.  The thinner worked perfectly – leaving me with a thin, smooth, and glossy jelly polish!

Here it is on my nails – this is three coats:

You can see that it looks more orange here than in the swatch wheel photo; like I noted above, it seems to vary from more orange to more strawberry/ reddish based on the light.

Overall, I’m so thrilled with it! I love jelly finish polishes, and this is a super-cheap way to turn my cremes into jellies (and keep the cremes too, since it only uses about a quarter of the creme).

Have you tried frankening? Any notable successes or failures?