Make Your Own Striping Brush

There are many kinds of brushes for nail art in the market. A striping brush is one essential in many designs. 

It is good to invest in good branded brushes and tools, but for beginners and not very avid hobbyists, making your own saves you money and you may customize it for your needs as well.

Here's how I made a striper:

I used:

• An old (almost dried out) nail polish. The good thing is that it already has a nail art type brush.
• Some acetone and cotton, or cloth for cleaning.
• A pencil.

It really is very easy to make, here's how:

Take of the cap (with brush) of this old nail polish and discard the bottle. 

Take off the cap (with brush) of this old nail polish and discard the bottle. 

Wipe it clean with a piece of cloth, so that you won't have problem pulling the brush part off.

Clean all residue left using some acetone and cotton balls.

Trim the brush if you think they're still too thick.

Finally snap it on a pencil just like you do a topper. This thing fits any standard pencil.

 

There you go! Your new striper. What's good about it is that since it's topped on a pencil, you grip on it easier than those thin brushes, allowing you to work comfortably.

The Plastic Shoes Makeover Project

Wardrobe emergency! I need a pair of wedge shoes that would match my white dress with black details. I'm tight on budget to buy a new one, too busy to go thrift-shop hunting (lots of luck needed since my size is kinda big), and I have just 3 days left before the event I have to go to.


Here's how I transformed my old pair of plastic wedge into a sparkling color block pair, using whatever resources I have at hand and a few add-ons from local supplies stores:

What I used:

an old pair of plastic wedge sandals 
a few bottles of nail polish (white, plum, black, glittered plum, clear)
some packets of glitters (black and silver)
2 meters of black satin ribbon (1/2" thick)

blackand clear nailpolish

a tube of silver glitters, three packets of black and a bottle of crafting glue just in case, but I didn't use it.

First thing's first, decide on what you want your shoes to look like. I figured, I'd make a color block wedge because painting the whole shoe with one color is too boring, imagine the size of nail polish brush and you have to fill a large surface, especially that I'm working on a wedge.

So, the shoe will be divided into 3 major section, colored silver, plum and black.

Mark those using ballpoint pen.

I figured, nail polish sticks better to plastic than glue or any other adhesive available.And dries faster too.

First, you have to paint a coat of white polish into one small section, not too thin, though. Then sprinkle glitters onto that section while the polish is still wet.

Do that until the whole section is filled with polish and glitter. Let it dry.

Do the same for the black section.

You may want to start the plum section on the other one, just as I did.

I painted 2 coats of plum polish.

with one coat of plum nail polish

with two coats of plum polish

Then paint another coat of glittery polish on top. I used OMG Crystal Sand in OPAL

Let dry while working on the other piece.

I had figured, maybe the next time I'm changing a shoe color, I'd use nail polish and glitter top coat instead, it dries faster and clings on better than crafting glitters. Less messy too.

As mentioned above, the black parts will have the same procedure as the silver ones.

Here's how they look like minus the satin ribbons which I recycled from previous Halloween project.

Finish the new shoes by adding a pair of black satin ribbons as replacement for the plastic buckled straps.

Tips:
*You may use clear top coat to prevent the glitters from falling off.
*You can also use a hair dryer to speed up drying and shake off excess glitters.
*Use a broad sheet of paper such as brown paper bag spread out to catch excess glitters so you may use them on other uncovered parts, thus saving on materials.
*Use tape to cover some parts or to define edges and separate color sections neatly.
*1" ribbons look better

The finished product: