Necklace Refashion-Leopard

          I have had this necklace staring at me for 4 months just wanting to be refashioned.  I won it in a Bunco game back in September.  I love these kinds of necklaces, but I am not a pink girl.  I don't know what it is, but pink has always been kind of a struggle for me, so I knew immediately that I wanted to refashion it.

        For this project, you need:

1. Necklace to refashion
2. Acrylic paint- Whatever colors work for you
3. Mod Podge
4. Tissue paper
5. Paint brushes
6. (I ended up not needing the Xacto knife, but I thought I would need it for the sharp point edge on the sides of the beads with the tissue paper, but my fingers worked just fine.)

The first step was to pick a base color that could create a texture.

 This brown acrylic paint was becoming very goopy inside, but that was perfect as I wanted to add some texture to these beads.  I took an old paint brush and stippled/pounded the brown paint onto all of the bright pink beads.

 

As you can see here, the brown didn't cover the pink, but that is perfectly fine as I was going to be putting on a thicker, richer color over top. 

Here you see that I used a dark maroon color over top of the brown..... now this was more of the color that I was wanting over the hot pink.

I went through and painted both sides of the hot pink beads (using the stipple/pounding "technique"), first with the brown, then with the maroon paint, letting the top dry first before turning it over to do the back side.

So here we are with the hot pink beads completely covered and painted maroon.  I was really happy with the color and texture, but they were more matte and I wanted them to be more glossy so that they looked like real beads and not like they were painted.....

 So out comes the trusty Mod Podge.

 Take the Mod Podge and simply just coat each of the painted beads.  

 When that is all coated, let it dry.  It will dry clear, but it will create a glossy finish to give the beads a "real" look instead of a painted look.

 Here you can see that the left ones went clear while the right ones were still drying.

Next step- Tissue Paper!  Now, if you remember this post, I am repeating the same technique with the same tissue paper..... but this is a smaller surface and may be a bit more tedious.

 This stuff is seriously so easy to work with. 

 Paint the surface

 rip a piece of tissue paper and stick it on it

 paint over the tissue paper and press down as you move along to make it as smooth as possible.

 I did find that while working on the tissue paper, it really worked great to drape the necklace over 2 bottles of paint to get it up off of the surface so that it didn't stick.

After doing both sides of all 7 beads, the necklace is done!

 I really do think that with the layers and the Mod Podge, it really will hold up as long as you don't take something sharp to it ;-)

 Before and After

It was nice before, but it became ME after

Here it is on!

So what jewelry pieces aren't quite right for you?  Do you have an awesome piece that could just use a little creativity?  This is a piece that I can totally see myself wearing often as a great statement piece.  I do love my large necklaces!

Grand Opening Sale

I am so excited for my Etsy Shop to be open, that I am celebrating by having a Grand Opening Sale.  Head on over to see all of the new designs that are up and to save 20% on any purchase of $20 or more.  

https://www.etsy.com/shop/PeacocksandLeopards?ref=si_shop

ETSY shop

I am so excited to have finally gotten my Etsy shop up and running for my Custom Boutique Bracelets!  I have been selling them privately for months now and have been doing really well with it, that I have now decided to take the plunge and get a shop open.  Most of my pieces are ONE-OF-A-KIND!  This means that you will not be walking down the street or the hall and run into someone wearing the same things as you ( I had an experience in high school where a girl was wearing the exact same sweater as me on the same day and it bothered me so much that I still remember it to this day..... one-of-a-kind is a big deal to me, hence why I refashion a big chunk of my clothes).

On occasion, I do find designs that I can repeat and because they do are so popular, I recreate them the same or similar.

So here is my shop!  https://www.etsy.com/shop/PeacocksandLeopards?ref=si_shop

I am still in the process of getting bracelets on there, so by the end of next week, I should have a LOT posted and you won't know I just opened :-)

I create both Women's (in 2 different sizes) and baby/Toddler ones that are SO adorable!

The only way this is going to work for me, is if people help spread the word!  So please share, follow me on there, <3 your favorite pieces, pin them on Pinterest, whatever you feel you can do.  I promise to post Giveaways and Sales and do post new, unique designs.

I am posting some pictures of bracelets that I have made in the past (most cannot be recreated at this time), just to show different styles that I create.  I really do try my best to cover every kind of person.  I take a lot into consideration when I create my pieces.

Here are some of my faves, but I have made WELL over a 100+ and they are all different.  No way of me sharing all of my designs.  I love them all and I truly hope that others will fall in love with them too.  Thanks to all of those that have supported me up to this point, I really, truly appreciate it!  You may just be seeing some outfit posts on here based entirely around some of my bracelet designs :-)

 This adorable pink, black and silver one is a baby/toddler one and is just precious!  I have 3 little girls and they all wear these and love them!

The #1 Question I get asked!

So who can guess what the #1 question is that I get asked?  I literally get asked this question almost daily........... if you guessed "How do you do your hair?" you get a big cyber High Five!  I get messaged this question multiple times a week, so instead of typing it out over and over and over... I decided that a blog post was in order explaining it step by step so that I can just direct people to this page and say "I have a simple answer for you!"  No more typing it out and trying to explain it, this will be my last.

 

So here we go!

 

After I get out of the shower, I put my hair in a towel and get my make-up on. 

This picture shows the "I just took a towel off my head" look.  Now, I don't know if I am the only one, but because I have wavy hair and go multiple days without washing/brushing my hair, I can sometimes get a massive rats nest in my hair, especially right under where my neck is.

 so I take a brush and brush all of my hair out completely to make sure that there are no knots when I start the process.... Yes brushing takes the curls out, that is why I do this next step.

 I find that working with sopping wet hair is best, so I always soak it up by sticking it in the tub and getting it dripping wet.

 

 At this point, take a towel and hand dry it to where it isn't dripping so much or at all.

 

 All of these products here are what I use on my hair.  There may be better products out there, but these are what I use and they seem to do the job that I want done.  The order in which I put it in my hair is as follows:

 

1. Curling Mousse-  I get a handful of this and scrunch it all over my head.
2. Curl Shaping Spray Gel-  I just spray this all over my head making sure I get underneath also.
3. Hi-Rise Root Booster- this get pumped at the roots all around my crown in various spots and massaged into my roots just a bit.
4. Hair Spray- I do a quick layer of hair spray to help it hold while it dries and gets diffused.



 A diffuser is a must!  If you don't have one, get one!  My blow dryer literally burned up and smoked up my whole upstairs, so this is a brand new one and my first time using it was here.  I scrunch and dry and move around my head doing that.

 

 It is getting closer to being dried!

 

 This is what it looks like after being diffused and where most people stop thinking that this is what their hair is going to look like.  I wasn't ok with that, so I kept trying different things and this is what I found that I love the end result. (My hair here is pretty much entirely dry, but it is ever so slightly damp which helps in this next step.) 

 Take the hair that is on the crown of your head like shown above and....

 twist it very tight

 into a twisted bun and clip it with a claw like shown.  At this point, I will go and get my bed made, clean house, take care of whatever the girls are screaming about, etc. while it stays in this position a while and can take the shape on.... OR  I will do my hair first and during this step, get my makeup on and get dressed, but doing that here would have meant that you would all see me without my makeup and (gasp), I can't have my face plastered online looking like that ;-), so I waited to do my hair until after the makeup was on.

 After it has been in this bun for at least 30 minutes or longer, take your blow dryer and help the process along by getting it all dried up.  You can see here that I take the clip off to dry it.

 Here the bun is taken out and I will admit that I didn't wait long enough, but I was on a time crunch and needed to get it done.  so I mess my hair up like crazy and spray it..... but we still aren't done.

 Since I didn't get the bun completely dried, I had to use the blow dryer to get it all the way dry.  The downside of me rushing it and not getting it fully dry in the bun was the volume on the top of my head.  this is where I get so much volume from, so it is worth getting it dried in the bun as best as you can.  After it is fully dried, I use a 3/4-1" curling iron on it in sporadic spots around my whole head to blend with my own natural curl.

 The curl that I use is started at the root of the hair and wrapped around the barrel with my other hand.  In this picture, my other hand was taking the picture, so it isn't twisted all the way.  *Be cautious not to burn your fingers on this part.

 After it is all curled, I squirt some of this frizz control and run my hands over all of my hair to tame down the flyaways that us curly girls tend to get.

 

And here is the final result when everything is finished.  NOW, since I didn't wait the full time and didn't get the volume I usually do, here are some photos showing what it normally looks like after doing it properly.

 

The look can change depending on how much you use the curling iron.  The bottom picture has more curling iron curls on it where the top has just some with mostly my natural wave in it.

 

So there you go!  Hopefully I answered everyone's questions and that this whole process makes sense.  Let me know if you try it and if it worked for you.  I have very thick hair that is more on the courser side, so it may not work on all hair types.