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!

Leopard Tissue Paper Shoes Refashion

This is a project I started on a few weeks ago, but just didn't have the time to finish it up until this past weekend.  I have had people waiting to see how this one turned out.... I think they were doubtful that it would turn out, but it turned out AWESOME!!!

 I started off with these pink shoes that my dad gave to my girls for dress ups from the thrift store (they have lots of dress up shoes, so they did not need another pair.... so naturally, I took them ;-) )

I had these leopard tissue paper sheets that came in some packages I had ordered and desperately wanted to think of something to use them for.... so of course, why not SHOES!

I started this process by painting sections of the shoe with some Mod Podge and tearing fairly small pieces of the tissue paper and sticking it on.  I was careful not to get Mod Podge on the sole of the shoe so that when it came time to cut it with an exacto knife, it wouldn't be glued on the sole and would give me a clean edge.  Up at the top area, I wrapped the tissue paper to the inside and glued it down with the Mod Podge.

After everything is glued down,  take your Mod Podge and coat the entire top of the tissue paper making sure to completely seal the whole thing.  Let it dry and exacto knife the edges off very carefully.  Next, paint the heel and the straps with Cognac leather paint.  it takes a couple of coats to really get a nice look, then paint the buckle with gold fingernail polish.  As you can see above, I undid the buckle to get everything painted.  One thing I have noticed from projects, leather paint doesn't hold up under any buckles, it rips it off and ruins the whole thing, so this time I decided to cover the whole strap with Mod Podge to protect it and it is working out great

I am super excited with how they turned out!

Definitely one-of-a-kind shoes that will be great for dressing up or pairing with jeans like I did here.

The jeans, jacket & brown cuff here are thrifted from friends or my local FB Yard Sale page, scarf was a cheap find at Walmart.  Super inexpensive, yet fun and colorful outfit for the fall approaching..... and I am LOVING these shoes!  So fun to see people's reactions when I tell them I refashioned them with tissue paper!