Hi Beauties!

Well, I’ve been coveting a beauty must-have for a while. I’m sure a lot of you have heard of the “Z” Palette, or seen similar items which are basically empty magnetized palettes designed to hold your de-potted eyeshadows, powders, blushes etc.

The Z Palette Pro: click on image to purchase

I have to say part of my inspiration for wanting one was because I decided to de-pot my M.A.C shadows and visit my local counter for a free lippie on the Back2Mac program.

 However I just couldn’t justify shelling out $30 + for this particular item (why not just pay $36 for the lipstick?), and frankly, waiting for it to ship from heaven knows where takes far too long… so – I decided to get crafty.

And of course. Sharing is caring, so here are my instructions for a D.I.Y “Z” Palette. It turned out pretty well I think!

Here she is:

I adore this, it hasn’t left my bathroom counter since I made it. It’s so neat to have all your fave colours in one personally designed palette! Hoorah for such a wonderful idea! If you’ve never thought about doing this with your single eyeshadows, blushes, facepowders etc before, go for it, it will change your makeup life!

Now, to make your own (life-altering) palette. Here is what you need:

 * A book that is the size of the palette you want to make. (normally I NEVER advocate ruining books for craft (since you know, books are SPECIAL!!). But since this one was only three dollars and about motorbikes I decided to make an exception!)

* Foam board – At least as much as the book x 2 (I found this as packaging in a box – but you can pick this stuff up from officeworks etc).

* Scissors or a stanley knife, for cutting said book and board.

* Black duct tape

* Flat metal washers (at hardware stores for a few dollars)

* Double sided tape (not pictured)

* Magnetic paper/strips – this is probably the hardest “ingredient” to find. You can buy it in packs from office stores (see the officeworks version here) or you can just use whatever you can find around the house.

I used one of those magnetized calenders that gets put in your mail box from the local real estate, and just cut it to fit. You could also use magnet pieces or strips (like these), as long as you have enough to fill the base of your palette.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Grab your trusty book and open it out so you can see where the pages and the spine meet. Grab your knife or scissors (be careful!) and cut around all the inner pages and remove, so you’re left with the “shell” of the book. It should look like the picture below.

Now take your book and lay it on the foam board to measure how much you will need. You need two pieces of foam board for the inner “buffers” of the palette, so lay the book out and draw around it on the foam to get the right size, then cut the pieces of foam out with your stanley knife. 

Then, leaving an inch or two around the edge, draw and then cut another square out in the centre of one of the foam board pieces.

I just did this free hand, but you could use a ruler to get it all perfect if you like! This will be the edge of your palette.

Before sticking in your foam board you will want to add your ‘magnetic’ magic into the base of the palette (the section/side where you won’t have a full sheet of foam stuck in) If you are using magnetic sheets, measure and cut the sheet to size and secure with double sided tape. As I just used scrap of magnet I had at home, I cut and blended pieces to fill the space.

Now, using the double sided tape, secure the foam board pieces inside the book ‘shell’ like the picture below (the black part is where you’ve stuck the magnet sheet):

Finally, you want to take your duct tape and cover the ENTIRE palette/book – front and back. Just coat the whole thing with strips of the tape. I did a couple of layers and overlapped the pieces to make things nice and secure and finished off. Press the tape into the ridges and grooves of the palette to make it nice and neat. This gives it a strong surface that can be wiped over later and makes the whole thing look cohesive.

Now, you just need to take your depotted shadows and put them in!

Metal pans will adhere magnetically without a problem. Most of mine did, however, aluminium pans like the MAC ones need a metal element adhered to the bottom to make them stick. I just used washers from the hardware store and glued them to the base of the pot before placing in the palette, you can place the sticker from the back of the product over the washer after securing it and they will still magnetize to the palette base (plus its a nice way to keep track of your colours):

 You can also do as I’ve done below and place the stickers from the product on the inner lid of the palette so you know what you’ve got hanging out in there!

 So beauties, there you have it, a do it yourself Z palette, for a fraction of the cost! I think it’s pretty ‘crafty’ if I do say so myself

 xxxBeautyScholar