Marc Jacobs- Striped Star Hair Clip

Marc by Marc Jacobs- Hair Clip

I think this next tutorial is just plain cool! I loved these Marc by Marc Jacobs Star Hair Clips. Their simplicity but cool color combinations in contrasting stripes really stand out in hair. So, obviously I found a way to make my own. 

I used polymer clay and added rhinestones for extra sparkle. I also made mine on bobby pins so I could stick them anywhere on my hair!

Mine, in various colors.

Below is the full tutorial.

Again, like many of my tutorials, this can be customized to fit your liking. Choose your own colors in your favorite combinations! I also used a cookie cutter to make my star. You can use different shapes to make different styles!

Step 1: Gather materials. Needed are polymer clay, bobby pins, glass rhinestones, a paintbrush, small cookie cutters, clear lacquer, super glue and hot glue. If you have a pasta machine you use to roll clay, this is needed as well. If not, use a rolling pin.

Step 2: Choose 3 colors of your clay, shape into balls. The original Marc clip uses yellow, black and gray. Run these through the pasta machine on the second setting, or just roll thin with your rolling pin. 

Step 3: Cut about 1/4" strips from your sheets. Place these strips side by side and gently rub the edges of the colors together to adhere a bit. You will have one panel of your colored strips. Carefully pick the panel up without separating the strips, and run through the pasta machine again, on the next thinnest setting. Or just roll thinner with your pin. You may need to roll it through a couple of times to make sure the clay sticks really well. Take a separate ball of one of your colors again and roll it through the machine on the first setting. Place your thinner colored stripes panel on top of this plain one, and press down. This makes sure that your cutout will be a little thicker so it won't break!

Step 4: Find a nice place for your cutout, and use your cookie cutter to make the cutout.

Here are pics of a red/orange/purple one I made.

Run this panel through pasta machine....

Place stripes on top of plain panel, cut out.

Step 5: Add rhinestones. Here are my three stars. I added three rhinestones to the top of each, just to give some sparkle. Press the rhinestones down into the clay to secure. If you like yours plain, keep them plain!

Bake these at about 125 degrees for 20 min. You may have to vary this as I use a small toaster oven.

Step 6: Finishing. When these are all baked and cooled. Clear them with the lacquer. Let them dry completely. Squeeze a small line of hot glue on the back, and stick the end of the bobby pin in the glue to secure. Let dry. I have found that the hot glue won't be enough to hold on to the clay. When I first made these, they came off of the hot glue after I wore them once! So I think it's good to superglue them as well. Carefully detach the star from the glue glob and score the clay with a sharp knife or pin to help create texture for glue to hold to. Then, apply superglue to this score mark and re-attach your hot glue/bobby pin glob. Let dry again.

Wear, wear, wear!!

Super-cool and sparkly!

Use to pull hair back...

Decoration on my topknot!

All three!

The trio again

If you share/use/post this tutorial, please link back to me. It is much appreciated :)

Re-Vamp your Friendship Bracelets!

No, this tutorial does not have you making any type of designer DIY! 

It's a simple tutorial to make cool the-dye friendship braided bracelets. I came up with this idea when trying to get a more dainty tie-dye effect, instead of just using those thick strands of embroidery floss. This tutorial is simple, but just a bit tedious. The results are very pretty though! And you can add any kind of charms you want, which is the best part!

Step 1: Gather materials. Needed are scissors, small charms, and embroidery floss.  Use as many colors as you want. Each color combination will have different results!

Step 2: Cut your embroidery floss. I used about 1 foot of the floss, but my wrists are small. It's better to cut more than less. I used about 11 strands of my floss. Now, separate the floss into it's individual threads (tedious!!) and lay out on your table, careful not to tangle them.

Step 3: Group all of your individual threads into 3 big groups, making sure you get a variant amount of colors in each group. Knot at the top, and braid. You should get a nice tie-dye effect!

Knot at the end, when it's long enough to tie on your wrist. 

Make them in a variety of colors! Also, vary the amount of strands you use (more, less) to make thinner and thicker bracelets.

To add charms, simply place charms on a jumping and add in the middle of your braid. 

You are finished! Add as many or as little as you want!

I made a set out of my three friendship bracelets, with coordinating charms. Here are the photos!

If you share/use/post this tutorial, please link back to me. It is much appreciated :)

Gorjana Earring DIY- "Love Story Hoops in Chocolate"

Gorjana's Love Story Hoops with chocolate pearls

From jewelry design company Gorjana, famous for their simple yet chic metal designs, comes these classic hoop earrings made with pearls and faceted silver beads. Gorjana jewelry has been featured in tons of fashion magazines including People and InStyle, to name a few. 

These earrings are perfect to wear to both work and parties, as their simplicity lends itself to many outfits and styles. My tutorial below shows you exactly how to replicate these. What's good about these earrings is that you can change the colors of both the pearls and the faceted beads, as well as make them with either gold or silver wire/findings to suit your taste.

  

My version!

  Plus, the Gorjana earrings are $80. I made mine for less than $4, using wire scraps and glass beads. 

Step 1: Gather materials. Needed are pliers, silver (or gold) craft wire, two silver (or gold) ear wires, 4mm glass pearls and 3mm faceted glass beads. If you don't have chocolate-colored pearls and silver faceted beads, like I didn't, I will show you how to transform them with a little nail polish and toothpicks!

To make your chocolate pearls, simply stick the pearl on the end of a toothpick and dip into a tube of shimmery brown nail polish (I used Sally Hansen Beautiful in Bronze) and stick the other end of the toothpick in some thumb tack to hold it upright and still. Repeat with other pearls and let dry about an hour (you want the nail polish to fully dry so it isn't  gummy, so no rushing!). For the faceted beads, stick onto the end of toothpicks as well, but paint these with a coat of silver nailpolish, no dipping. If you dip, it will smooth out the facets in the beads too much. Let these dry as well. Gently twist off toothpicks to release.

I used 4 pearls and 5 faceted beads per earring. The Gorjana earrings have 5 pearls and 6 faceted beads, but I wanted my hoops to be a little smaller (their hoops are 2" wide). You can choose what you want to do! 

Also, if you want to use different color pearls and faceted beads, go ahead! These earrings are totally versatile!

Step 2: Make the beaded link. You want to cut about 2.5" or so of your craft wire. Make a small loop at the end with your pliers, and string on your beads: faceted, pearl, faceted and so on, ending with a faceted. Cut excess wire if needed and loop the side closed. Repeat for second link.

Step 3: Make your large loops. Loop the remaining craft wire around a bottle of paint or some other round object and then cut to create two large loops. Mine were a little less than 1.5" wide. Take the ends of the large loops and make a small loop with your pliers on either side (last pic.). Now twist these small 90 degrees so that they are streamlined and don't stick into the center of the small loop.

Step 4: Finish. Take your beaded link and attach to one of your large loops (first pic.) on either side. Repeat with other link and large loop. You probably will need to gently bend all the wires a bit so that they create one large circle. To finish, add your ear wires to the top of the earrings.

This is what they should look like!

How they look when worn.

If you share/use/post this tutorial, please link back to me. It is much appreciated :)

Easy Ettika Bow Bracelet

the spec sheet!

This tutorial is super fast and super easy!

Ettika is a jewelry company popular among celebs and fashionistas alike, and their works have appeared in a ton of fashion magazines as well. This bow bracelet is totally doable for a DIY, and it doesn't require mad skills to make!

This sells for $32 on their site. You can make yours for less than $3. Who needs to know?!

As you can see, I made mine in silver; I wear a lot more silver and I had extra silver chain and findings on hand. They make gold and silver versions, so pick whichever metal you like better.

Step 1: Gather materials. Needed are pliers, a paintbrush, clear lacquer, scissors, polka dot ribbon (Ettika makes green, blue and yellow versions of their bracelet so pick one of those colors), two jump rings, a clasp set, and chain.

My ribbon was about 1cm. wide, but it's ok if the size varies a little, it won't change the look entirely.

Step 2: Make the bow. Take your length of ribbon and make a loop in the center around your first finger (pic 1). Take the ribbon on the bottom, and loop back up around your first finger, over your thumb. Take the ribbon to the back of your first finger (pic. 2). Pinch the first loop you made along with the part we just took over the thumb with your other hand (pic. 3). There should be a small opening at the right to pull that ribbon from pic. 2 thru. Pull to form the bow. The arrows show you which way to pull the ribbon.

You should end up with a bow in the center of your length of ribbon. If the polka dot side is not showing, twist the ribbon to make sure it shows on the front. You don't want the blank side to face front.

Step 3: Finish bow. Take you paintbrush and paint the back of the knot really good with lacquer to "glue" the knot in place. Then, cut the ribbon ends into triangles to create that cute cut look. I cut mine about 2.5cm from the center knot. Then, paint lacquer on the back edges of the ribbon to prevent fraying.

Step 4: Add chain and finish. Measure your wrist to cut the correct amount of chain. The bow will be about 2" long. I needed my bracelet to be 6" long. I needed 4" of chain on each side,  8" of chain total. You need to double the amount of inches of chain you need on each side of the bow because you will be making a loop, and essentially cutting the entire chain length in half by doing so.

Loop these two chain lengths through the loops in the bow. Close the chains by attaching your jump rings.

Add the clasp to the end. Finished!

If you share/use/post this tutorial, please link back to me. It is much appreciated!