Love Type Thing

Gold Sequin Pillow DIY

Monday, June 01, 2015

Hello there! I want to share with you my latest "golden" DIY. Lately I've been crazy about finding beautiful decorative pillows with gold accents, even when I've found very pretty ones in Marshalls and Ross, I still have not enough of them and definitely don't have the cash to buy some of the prettiest ones (like sequined ones, even a small one is around $20 USD).

So, I had a pillow, lying around the house, and I decided it was time to revamp it. I think I got this from mexican Walmart a couple of years ago, I remember I paid around $50 pesos for it (like $3 USD), it has poor quality but at the time, as a newly wed, I needed stuff to "fill up empty spaces". What I did is very simple and quite easy, I loved this project because of that and because it was very cheap!

BTW, sorry for the poor quality photos, I still don't have a professional camera, this is all using my cellphone and sometimes I get it right and sometimes the light is wrong, the sequins are very hard to photograph, they come up blurry, etc etc etc...

Ok, so... this was my ugly pillow:

What I did is I bought Stretch Gold Sequin Trim from a local store here in Ensenada where you can buy by meter (I bought 1.5 meters and it was more than enough), price was around $2 USD per meter. I found this link in Amazon with what looks like the one I used, pretty much the same one.

First I thought of covering entirely one side of the pillow, but then I figured I wanted stripes, so I played around a litle bit:

I used a hot glue gun, figured out where I wanted my stripes (didn't measure it so they didn't come up perfectly aligned), and I glued away...

This is the final result:

I really really loved it!!!! It matches my decoration perfectly! (also you can see in that picture the dust bag of my very lovely Kate Spade handbag ♥)

Total price of this project was around $6.5 USD, I'm so excited and I definitely plan on doing this with other cheap pillows that I may find on the road...

Please share with me if you have projects like this! Feel free to use the comments section or to email me.

Regards! XOXO

Charles Street Brantley

Live colorfully.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

DIY

Get up and shake the glitter off your clothes now.

Sunday, February 01, 2015

I'm kind of in a "shoe crisis" at this specific moment of my life. You know? All these adulthood years I've been awful at taking care of my feet, I confess I'm the kind of person who buys the cheapest shoes as long as they're pretty! I've always hated the idea of paying a lot of money for something I'm gonna end up ruining in a couple of months... sadly, for the last couple of months I've been in a lot of pain, my feet hurt all the time and I had awful corns :( I needed a deep pedicure and I payed for one 3 weeks ago at an awful place in Ensenada called "Angie Day Spa" NEVER get a pedicure there... they charge full price for cold water and an old nail file... plus the girl looked in a hurry like she really wanted to go and was sloppy all the time... I had to go to my mom and she gave me a 5000% better pedicure at home, she's a sweetheart...

With that said, I took a decision I should have taken more than a year ago when I bought the most comfortable booties I've ever had: Never again will I buy cheap shoes. This doesn't mean I will pay retail... I hardly ever pay retail... this means I will have to look harder and spend a bit more money in order to get good shoes, good support, right size, etc... etc.... So first, I need to get rid of old shoes right? Non-comfy ones... then at the same time I've been reading all these DIY Glitter Shoes tutorials... I decided maybe I can get rid of old shoes or maybe I can revamp them, try to make them comfortable and wearable and still have fun with a new crafting project!

All blogs I read call for Mod Podge... but I live in México and specifically in Ensenada where we definitely/urgently need a crafts store... where to buy it? Where??? A friend and I walked the whole city, went to Office Max, Home Depot, a bunch of local stores and nothing! I was starting to give up when we googled alternatives and found out that 1 part of white glue + 1 part of water could do the trick. I was a bit skeptical but went with it... also I didn't find the "almost dust" glitter I was looking for, I really need to go craft shopping in San Diego... I decided I was going to start with a couple of very old patent leather shoes, in that case if I didn't like the finish, I could always just throw them away.

1. I used a very fine sand paper to take the gloss out, so the glue could stick better and not fall off.

2. I mixed 1 part of glue and 1 part of water, then I mixed in the glitter. I didn't like this... I shouldn't have, it made the finish a bit bumpy and I had to fix it later.

3. I started with a very thin layer, using a foam brush... it was very frustrating because the glitter was so heavy it was sinking at the bottom and I couldn't get any of it; so, I decided to use a spoon to pour small amounts and then "spread it" with the brush. This worked a lot better.

4. I gave it 2 coats and waited for them to dry like 30 minutes between each coat. They were looking a lot better but still not what I wanted! You can look at the texture and dullness :(

5. Then I put a 3rd coat using mostly glue and just poured in the glitter on top of it... shook the excess off and they were so MUCH better!!!

I still believe I need to try this project again but with "dust" glitter and mod podge... and NO mixing of the mod podge and glitter... Lucky me I have plenty of shoes I can use for this hehehe...

I also added a comfy insole for me to use this and not kill my poor feet! I know this is not making them "good shoes" but at least I get to wear them a couple of times before saying bye bye!

So this is it for now... I'll keep you posted if I do more of these projects!