Showing posts with label Veronica DeStefano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Veronica DeStefano. Show all posts

Chipper Earrings: Paint Chip DIY



As a child, I loved going to Home Depot just to gaze lovingly at the wall of paint chips. My mom would always let me pick out a couple to take home (the common theme seemed to be bright pink, go figure) and I would put them in my scrapbook. When I was in sixth grade, I got the opportunity to pick two colors for my room in the new house we were building, and I was ecstatic to go through all the lovely paint chips for a purpose. So when Pinterest showed me a DIY using paint chips to create earrings, my trip down memory lane made it a must do!

Chips off the old block that you need:

  • Paint chips (Pick the ones that have multiple gradients of a color. I grabbed a whole bunch of the Behr ones, and the Home Depot may or may not have questioned my morals.)
  • Earring hooks, jump rings (I have some of this stuff leftover from when I made duct tape earrings.)
  • Circle hole punch (I used one that is 1 ⅜ inches in diameter.)
  • Little hole punch (or some sort of needle thing to punch a tiny hole for the paint chips to connect to the earring hooks)
  • Glue (a glue stick, adhesive tape runner, tacky glue or whatever)
  • Scissors
  • Pliers

The first thing you will do is punch circles in each color on the gradient. Make two sets of these circles so that you will have a set per earring. I found it easier to cut off the area with the names to get to the plain color area with my hole punch. Pro tip for using hole punches: Flip it over so that you can see the paper through the opening of the punch. This helps you make sure you are punching where you want to.



Now you have to make the big decision of what you want to make your base, either the lightest or the darkest color. To get the classic ombré effect, make the lightest color the base so that the smallest part of the circle will end up being a piece of the darkest color and it goes down to the lightest.

The base color will stay uncut in its circle form. Take the next color in the gradient (a color a shade darker for me), and carefully slide it into the circle hole punch. Have a part of the circle punch area open and not covered by the paper. It should kind of look like the opening is a crescent moon, and the paper is the shadow covering the rest of the moon (or the paper is a gibbous moon, but only people who took astronomy would understand that). Punch that out so that you have a crescent shape and thick almond shape. You will be using the almond shape layered on top of the base. To create the corresponding color almond for the other earring, follow the same punching technique or use the first almond shape as a template to cut the other one out.



Now you move onto the next darkest color, and you follow that same punching technique, except this time you want the empty space crescent to be thicker so that the almond shape is smaller. Repeat for the second circle of that darker color. You now have your darkest circle, and you want to create the smallest almond shape for that so the empty space in the hole punch must be the largest.



Once you have all your little pieces cut out, you can start layering by placing the biggest almond piece on the base piece by lining up the cut edge to the top edge of the base circle. Put glue of some sort on the back of that piece, and place it down on the base.



If you don’t believe in the strength of your hole punch, punch holes in the same place on each of the four pieces for the earring before you glue so when it is all glued together you can attach an earring hook. To get the most accurate punching, punch the first piece, line up the next piece under it, and punch through the hole you already made. You also can use a heavy duty punch and wait until the end to punch through all the glued pieces.

Now back to the layering business. Once you have glued down the biggest almond piece, take the next smallest piece and line the cut edge up to the top edge of the base circle, and glue it there. Repeat that for the smallest piece, and do the same steps for the second earring. 






Wait for the pieces to dry a bit before you punch the little hole through the top. Once you have punched the hole, you have the option of using two jump rings to attach the ombré circle to the earring hook or to just open up the loop at the bottom of the earring hook with your pliers. I chose the latter because it will have the circle face the right way without the added annoyance of opening and closing two jump rings. Use the pliers to close the loop back up. 



Voila! You now have a set of über trendy (and über inexpensive) earrings! Grab a whole bunch of colors and make lots for you, your mom, your aunt, your grandma, your friends and even your enemies because it’s that easy. You can always switch this up by using multiple different colors in the earring or using a different shape punch. You can use Mod Podge (my best friend) to be the adhesive and sealant if you worry about the staying power of your earrings. Chip it up!

By: Veronica DeStefano | Instructions: Source

DIY Workout Tank


For several years now, I have been using my summer break to try and get in great shape. That seems pretty typical because lots of people want to get that coveted bikini bod. Whether I use a Seventeen magazine workout plan (those are surprisingly effective), home workout video, go to the health club or just run and bike on the forest preserve trail next to my house, I try anything to stay active and fit. After completing my first year of college that ended with a lot of stress, late night eating, not enough working out and a little extra weight, I knew that this summer was mine to get my butt in gear.

Sometimes the motivation doesn’t always come easily, but nothing motivates me more than cute workout clothes. I fawn over the fashion of Nike and lululemon, but sometimes you can create an adorable look without breaking the bank! Yay craftiness for the ability to make cute workout tanks!

Pre-workout necessities:

  • A T-shirt (We all have that stack of free shirts that we only wear to workout anyways. I am using an old shirt from Jones Hall that I got to get me pumped about being an RA there!)
  • Fabric shears (If you have been following my DIYs, you should know the difference between scissors and fabric shears and you probably have already invested in a pair. They will make your college crafting and T-shirt cutting life much easier.)
  • Yes, that is all you need. Super easy, folks. 

Start by cutting off the crew neck collar of the shirt. To avoid cutting way deep into the back due to cutting around the front part of the collar, don’t cut through both layers at once. Snip next to the collar to get started and then cut through one side and go around to the other. This isn’t that terribly important for this DIY because we will be cutting into the back anyways, but it is a good habit to form.




Now it’s time to turn this tee into a tank! Cut off one sleeve, sort of following the shape of the armpit seam. You get to choose how thick or thin you want the straps of your tank top to be depending on how close or far from the neck hole you cut the sleeves off. After cutting the first sleeve, fold the shirt in half (hot dog style, if you go by preschool folding styles) to use the cut part as a template for cutting off the other sleeve. 



After the transformation from T-shirt to tank top is complete, cut off the hem of the shirt. Make sure the bottom of the shirt is lined up so that you aren’t cutting into the hem on one side. You will now have a little hem hoop. Cut the hoop so that it becomes one long strand. You can then cut the excess fabric on the other side of the hem. Gently stretch the hem strand by holding the two ends in either hand and pulling. Let that hang out on the side until we are ready for it. 


Flip your shirt over to get to work on creating a sporty racerback. Use a pencil or your intuition to trace and cut deeper into one side of the back to create a racerback. DO NOT CUT THROUGH BOTH SIDES. The key word in racerback is “back.” Just cut the back. Got it? Good. (Glossers, I am ashamed to say that I accidentally cut through the front of my Jones T-shirt, so I cried a bit and sang Hannah Montana’s “Nobody’s Perfect” and grabbed my white Blackhawks Stanley Cup Champions shirt. Don’t judge me too hard.) Use the piece you cut from the one side to be the template to cut the other side.


After you wipe that nervous sweat from your brow from cutting that racerback, cut a deep “V” shape (For Veronica! Oops, sorry that is my natural reaction because I guess I am a kindergartener.) into the back of the shirt from the top. 



Remember our friend, the hem strand? It’s time to bring him back into the game. Thread the strand through the straps of the tank top in the back and tie a double knot near the top of the “V” and then wrap it down the straps, around where the “V” is. Make sure you are pulling kind of tight when you wrap the strand down the straps. Once you are done wrapping, tie a double knot at the end of the wrap. Cut the excess ends of the strand.


Now it’s time to make neck and hemline decisions! You can cut a deeper scoop neck into the front of the shirt or leave it as is. I am, obviously, a v-neck fan but I am not doing that on my shirt today. For the hemline, you can leave it as it, make it cropped, make it high low or make it like a baseball shirt, high cut on the sides. I decided to do the baseball cut, so I folded my shirt in half and cut a curved line, starting high on the side and ending low at the fold.

Once you have done all the hemline and neckline cutting that your heart desires, you are done! You can try on the tank top to see if you need to adjust any cuts or stretch the top to create skinnier straps and make the cotton jersey taut. You can modify this DIY by tie-dying your shirt before you cut it. Now you can throw it on over your sports bra and get to working out! You’ve got this, Glossers!

By: Veronica DeStefano | Images: Veronica DeStefano | Instructions: Source

Heart Printed Cut-offs DIY

Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve, wear it on your leg!"
As you Glossers probably know, printed and patterned shorts are a hot item this summer. But as poor college students, sometimes dropping the dough on shorts isn’t exactly in our summer job budget. This is why you read my column, friends. Some adorable shorts could be yours for the low price of some fabric paint and maybe thrifted jeans if you don’t have old jeans or shorts to use.

Your lovely materials:

  • Old jeans/shorts (Go through your closet, your mom’s closet or your local Goodwill!)
  • Fabric paint (I got Tulip Soft fabric paint in Velveteen White.)
  • Sponge brushes (You know I have those for all my Mod Podge needs.)
  • Cardboard or really thick cardstock
  • Heart hole punch or the ability to draw a heart that you are content with

The DIY I was inspired by used long jeans but, with it being summer and all, I took the liberty to hack some jeans into shorts. For those who aren’t experienced at this craft, use a ruler or tape measure to figure out how long you want the in seam and then mark and cut them at that measurement. Always start with a bit longer of a inseam than you think you want and try them on to figure out if you need to cut more. But,feel free to keep them as full on jeans if you want them to be for the fall and winter and those other cold weather times.


Now that I gave you a CliffNotes version of cutting up your jeans, lets get on to the actual pattern part. For making the heart template, you can use the preschool method of folding your cardboard or cardstock in half: draw half of a heart and cut it out, so when you unfold it looks like a whole heart. Or you can be completely lazy and use a heart hole punch. I punched two hearts about 1 ½ inches apart. How much space you want between hearts is up to you, though. Punching the two hearts makes it easier to keep the hearts in line and equally spaced, otherwise you can get really intense and use a ruler to mark out spots where you will paint hearts. But it is summer, and the livin’ should be easy ... am I right?


Once you have assessed your laziness in making hearts, it’s time to get on to the fun part: painting! The key to this is holding the stencil flat to the jeans and using the itsy, bitsy, tiniest amount of paint on your brush as possible to avoid smudging hearts into oblivion. If there are some smudging problems, use a wet dishcloth with some dish soap to quickly wipe up the heart or quickly use the edge of your nail to straighten it out. 


Go on painting a row with your template, making sure there is equal spacing between each stencil duo of hearts. When you go on to the next row, stagger that stuff so that the the pattern doesn’t have too much empty space and generally looks good.


Continue doing this pattern until the front is finished. Let the front dry and continue onto the back. It is really up to you how you attack how much you paint. You can just do one side, half of a side, just the back pockets or whatever! Creative freedom at its finest! Try different punches, like circles or stars, for a different look!

There you go, you have the ability to punch holes and paint! This is one of the easiest and most rewarding DIYs you can do! So, slip on those shorts (make sure they are dry and make sure you let them dry for a day or so before washing -- read that paint bottle) and be prepared for the onslaught of compliments!

By: Veronica DeStefano | Images: Veronica DeStefano | Instructions: Source

Bangle Pops: Popsicle Stick DIY


It is taking every fiber in my being not to just watch more videos of the Blackhawks game and just run around screaming about the Stanley Cup win (I am writing this the day after the win, for you future readers). I was extremely tempted to just give you glossers a “How to Celebrate the Hawks Winning the Stanley Cup” DIY, which I wrote out right here:

Materials: iPod or YouTube cued to “Chelsea Dagger” by The Fratellis

Step one: Cry because you are so happy.
Step two: Smile everywhere you go because you are so happy.
Step three: Like, favorite, share and retweet anything Blackhawks related on social media.
Step four: Cry into the Stanley Cup champions shirt you already got (thanks to your brother running out to Sports Authority at 10:30 at night).
Step five: Watch that last minute or so over and over again until you can't cry anymore.
Step six: Swoon over Kane, Toews, Shaw, Crawford, Keith, Coach Q's mustache and their adorable wives and children.
Step seven: Wait for the parade because WHY ISN'T IT FRIDAY YET?

But, I know you Glossers don’t read my column to see how I fangirl over the champion hockey team. So, never fear, I did indeed do a DIY of the crafty sort.

The glorious season of summer means many things: no school (unless you are doing summer classes, in which I pray for your soul), cute swimsuits, the hot sun and the cold treats that follow. Honestly, I am not much of a Popsicle girl because I am more of a Fudgesicle girl or a Dove bar lover (read: chocolate goodness on sticks). Popsicle sticks are so quintessentially summer that I couldn’t help myself when I stumbled upon the the instructions for making bangle bracelets out of them.

Run after the ice cream truck and grab:

  • Popsicle sticks (Or tongue depressors. You want the ones that are wider. They even have cool, wavy ones at some places.) 
  • Patterned paper (to cover the sticks with)
  • Pencil and scissors (for tracing and cutting the paper)
  • Mod Podge
  • Sandpaper
  • Cups and deep baking dish (The dish is for soaking the sticks, and the cups are for forming the bangle shape.)


You want to first start by picking out some cute patterned paper that you want to cover your popsicle stick bangle. As someone who was an avid scrapbooker, this is not a problem for me (ALL OF THE CUTE PATTERNED PAPER). Flip the paper over so that the patterned side is down and use the pencil to trace around Popsicle stick. The instructions I found on Pinterest said that the wood will expand a bit so I traced the sticks to make the paper a around ½ inch longer than the actual stick and cut a bit wide around the edges to give me some wiggle room. Remember: It is always easier to go back and trim than it is to add paper.




After I cut out some cute paper Popsicle stick wannabe’s, I gathered several popsicles (I did six for safety sake, just in case some break) and placed them in a deep baking dish full of water to let them soak for about three hours. The quicker way to make the sticks supple and pliable is to boil them for 15 minutes, but the person who did the directions I found said that this made the sticks more brittle, so I opted for the soaking method. 



Before I attempted to form the sticks into the cups after I let them soak, I gently started to bend them into a curved shape while holding the stick in the water it was soaking in. Don’t be sad if you see some slivers cracking out. If they are minor they can be sanded down once the sticks dry.


After you do the initial bending of the sticks, gently push them into cups that are about 2 ¼ to 2 ½ inches in diameter. Generally, the cup circumference (you didn’t think you would find all these geometry terms in a craft, now did you...) should be big enough to fit around your wrist, but the wood also will expand in the soaking and drying process, so try something a bit smaller than you think you will need. As you push the sticks into the cup, press the sticks to the sides of the cup to form a nice round shape.

Now for the boring part: letting them dry. If it is a beautiful sunny day where you are, put the cups o’ sticks out in the sun to dry and speed up the drying time. (This plan is foiled if you try to let them dry out in 90 percent humidity. It is just not going to work.) The person whose instructions I followed said that she let her stick bracelets dry for 24 hours, but ain’t nobody got time for that. I mean, maybe you do have time for that because it is summer. You could always try to speed up the process with your trusty hair dryer because those suckers are good for stuff like that.



Once the now bracelet shaped sticks are dry, take them out of their cups and assess the damage. Some may have cracked beyond any sanding repair in this process, in which you have to bid them adieu and move on. The sticks that survived can be sanded down to get rid of any splinters and big unevenness. This will help the paper adhere to stick thoroughly.




Now for the part that makes me as happy as a little kid playing with mud: Mod Podge time! Paint some Mod Podge onto the surface of the popsicle bangle, and carefully lay the pre-cut paper onto the stick. Press the paper down, smoothing it out so that there aren’t any air pockets. Once the paper is completely smoothed down, you can take your scissors and trim off any excess paper. The directions I found said to sand down the edges of the paper and the wood together, but this can rip up the paper if you do it while the paper is still wet from the Mod Podge. I would avoid doing this. Do a light coat of Mod Podge over the top of the paper, along the edges of the stick and on the inside of the bangle to seal the wood. The Mod Podge will make the wood kind of wet, possibly causing it to expand a bit out of its small, round shape, so make sure you are forming it back into the bangle shape if necessary. 


Once the Mod Podge dries, you have some funky, new accessories! You can get creative with what you use to decorate the bangles. You can try some fun duct tape (because we all know I have funky duct tape) to cover it or use paint or Sharpies! Experiment, and have fun!

By: Veronica DeStefano | Images: Veronica DeStefano | Instructions: Source

Dorm Decor: Jean Letters DIY


First semester I cried over a pair of jeans. Not just any pair of jeans, you judgy Glossers. They were my well-loved, Sweet N’ Low style Lucky Brand jeans. They were soft and smooth as butter and made my butt look really good to boot. They just couldn’t take all the love I was giving them and, literally, ripped at the seams. (It might also have to do with the fact that I tried to stretch my leg down too many steps as I was getting down from my top bunk that I just finished putting new sheets on.) I brought the sad, ripped jeans home over winter break and put them up on a shelf in my closet because I couldn’t bear to part with them to the garbage can. The moral of this sob story is that I now have a great use for my old jeans: using them in a DIY to create a decor letter!


The good stuff:

  • Old jeans (yours don’t have to have a sob story attached to the tag)
  • Decor letter (either a paper mache one or wood or whatever Michaels has)
  • Glue (I am using my crazy fabric glue)
  • Shears
  • Other fabrics or appliques (If you want to add some spice to the plain jean letter) 


First things first, you have to cut open your jeans so that they are one flat piece of fabric and not like anything that a human could wear. I cut and ripped along the inside seams of the legs to open them up and the huge rip under the left butt pocket helped open it up even more. 


Now, with the inside of the jeans facing up, lay your letter down on a spot that avoids stitching or seams (unless you want a cool seam detail on your letter, then go for it!) and trace around it with a pencil. Repeat for the backside of the letter. Depending on what letter you use, you may need to flip the letter to trace the second one in order to get the right shapes for front and back. For example, can’t use two front facing D shapes. It just won’t work out. Cut out the general shape of the letters you just traced. 



Before I glued the jean pieces down, I trimmed them down so that I had about one-sixth or one-fourth of an inch of wiggle room from the tracing line. Then I spread glue all over the surface of the letter and carefully place the piece of fabric on top of the gluey letter. Smooth out the glue gently and flip the letter over and push down to make sure the fabric is adhered to the letter. Repeat for the back side. My letter has two little holes for hanging purposes on the back, so I just cut into those with my scissors after I glued down that piece. 


When it came for the edges of the letter, some of the excess fabric folded over the edge and covered it perfectly with some glue. But other places didn’t have enough fabric to cover the edge. In those cases you should use some of the leftover jean fabric you have and cut it into strips the width of the edge of the letter. Glue those strips around the bare edges, and trim excess with scissors. This can create a frayed effect that is actually really cool. 



Once you have the entire letter covered, you can either call it quits or you embellish your letter a bit more. Since I really wanted to commemorate my favorite jeans, I cut out a bit of the patterned pocket, the zipper detail and the button and glued them on as well. Any fun fabrics, trim, fabric markers or anything else you have in your craft area can add that little bit of fun! 


Yay! You now have a cute letter that is perfect to decorate your dorm room (ResLife probs, yo) or your apartment! It’s also a great gift for your roommates so that you can all have cute letters to hang above your bed or on your doors. Summer is the perfect time for DIYs like this to get ready for your new home next year!

I modified the instructions that are linked below. Follow them for more help.

By: Veronica DeStefano | Images: Veronica DeStefano | Instructions: Source | Inspiration: Source

Cuff 'Em: Ear Cuff DIY


Jewelry can really be that “Wow!” factor for an outfit. As someone who has a weird phobia of things rubbing the veins on the inside of my wrists, bracelets have never really been my thing. I like necklaces, but I use them sparingly. With my short hair, earrings are BFFL of the jewelry world. Ear cuffs are a trend on the rise, especially with funky festival goers. As a funky festival goer myself (LOLLA B*TCHE$), I thought I could try a go at this trend the only way I know how: by making it myself.

Funky things you need:

  • 18mm gauge jewelry wire (I have some from my heart ring DIY. The things I have left over...)
  • Round, needle nose pliers/wire cutters
  • Chains
  • Eye pins
  • Beads (These and the eye pins are optional. You could just leave the little chains unadorned.)

Once you have all your things, you can start by unwinding and cutting off approximately 20 centimeters of wire. You can always work with the wire still connected to the rest of the spool if you want to be able to pull it as you go. It may just be easier to cut a long chunk of wire to be able to easily manipulate it and make loops.


Cut the chain into pieces that measure around 10 centimeters in length. It will look cooler if they are varied lengths, so don’t get an aneurism worrying about how long they are. Hold them up along the edge of your ear to see how they will fall when they are on the ear cuff.

Now that you have your wire and chains prepared, it’s time to start making loops! Take the end of the wire and make a loop by wrapping the wire around the round nose of the pliers. This loop will be at the top of your ear, so you can decide if you want a chain hanging right in front of your ear and slide the loop of the chain into the loop in the wire. Close the loop with the pliers.


After you make that initial loop, round the wire so it will make a shape that will fit around your ear (an arch, if you will, for you Glossers from the Lou). I used my actual ear (fancy that) to help me create that shape, and I remembered, once again, that I have tiny, baby-sized ears.

Now we are going to get really loopy. Slide a chain onto the wire and create a loop below it where you will want the chain to hang. Once again, it is helpful to hold your wire up to your ear to figure out where you want the loops for the chain to be placed so that you can be happy with your ear cuff. Slide the chain into the loop and make sure the loop is tight together so that the chain won’t slide anywhere. Repeat that two, three or four more times depending on how big your ear is and how close together you put the loops.


Once you finish with the loops, cut the excess wire off after the last loop or create a small last loop to finish it off. Now, you can add beads to the chain if you want to. I did this by sliding a bead onto an eye pin, or small piece of wire with a loop at the bottom to stop the bead. Then, I took the wire with the bead on it and looped it through the bottom loop of a chain, using my pliers to wrap the wire around so that the bead would stay on. I repeated this for all the chains, but you can just do a bead here and there for accents if you want. 



Voila! You now have a hip new ear cuff to wear to any fun and funky events this summer. Plus, it is so quick and easy that you can make multiple cuffs for different outfits or for your friends! (You can be a nice friend and give them to your friends for free or capitalize on your crafting prowess and have them pay you. Hey, it’s better than them paying Etsy.)

By: Veronica DeStefano | Instructions: Source
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