Avoiding cloudy rhinestones

What are cloudy rhinestones? (I got the term on Google):

First, here are normal rhinestones (bought from the dollar store):

And here are cloudy rhinestones:

Maybe not the best examples, but it's obvious cloudy rhinestones lost their initial shine.

That's because of the glue used (in that case E-6000 is the culprit).

---

Two solutions

1. Change the rhinestones

The video below shows that glass hot-fix rhinestones, even though used with E-6000 glue, will still stay clear once glued.

2. Change the glue

Use Beacon Gem-Tac glue to stick the rhinestones. Compared to the E-6000, Gem-Tac doesn't damage the gems' brilliance (even though they're from the dollar store.)

*However, the rhinestones take longer to adhere to their surface with Gem-Tac than with E-6000 (in my opinion).

Happy decodening

My first order with Sophie & Toffee

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered cabochons from Sophie & Toffee. It's a really cute site for decoden lovers. Similar to Miniature Sweet.

This is what I ordered:
Cabochon Assortment / Assorted Cabochon / Kawaii Cabochon (B-Grade) - 100pcs

This is the display image for the item.

I know the decoden style I'm into doesn't really involves these cabochons; the whip decoden does mostly. However I've always found cabochons really cute and been curious about them. I also wanted to try including these in future deco projects. So I decided why not buying a random assortment to give it a try. It has a 4.5 stars review, so most people seem satisfied with what they got.

With the shipping, in total it cost me $29.51 USD. These cabochons have small imperfections, so their price is lower.

I placed my order on on July 31st and received the package on August 19th (I live in Canada). The cabochons were well protected in a lot of bubble wrap.

The 100 pieces I got.

Quality-wise, I was really satisfied. They do have defects as written in the site description, but I would say they're small and vary from piece to piece. I got none that was broken.

I'll show you random pieces so you can get the picture.

The "I-don't-really-see-what's-wrong-with-these-cabochons" (these are just examples, so there are actually a bit more like this):

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Most of the cabochons have more noticeable imperfections as you will see in the next pictures. Nonetheless I can easily cover them (with a rhinestone, add paint) or leave it as it is.

I'm pretty sure some cabochons sold on Amazon and eBay look like this but aren't labelled as being "imperfect".

I would say this is the most imperfect cabochon

of the whole batch.

Here is after I sorted out the cabochons I liked the most (top) vs cabochons I felt meh but still gonna try to use them (bottom right) vs cabochons I don't like (bottom left, although I changed the two lollipops to put them in the bottom right batch).

Something annoys me though. I didn't like getting 5 big horses unicorns, 4 big "kawaii" flat-pieces, and 5 big flat-hearts.

I know you shouldn't rely entirely on a picture to buy something, and I really didn't rely on the picture to buy them since I was certain the cabochons would have more serious flaws than what was shown on the site picture. But in total, it's still 14 big pieces that are really different from the other small cabochons. Even though I think it's a big amount, the site doesn't show such big (& flat) pieces in its display picture (except for the gingerbread, but still its not flat).

For this reason I think the picture on the site should be more representative of what people will get; this means: they could show these types of cabochons instead of just showing small cabochons and one bigger gingerbread.

I was expecting to receive imperfect cabochons, and I'm totally ok with that. I was also expecting to not like all of the cabochons, which is normal when you haven't chose them. But to receive 14 big and flat cabochons? No.

Of course, if I had received 1, 2 or 3 of them, it would have been ok (for example, I received that big pumpkin and the mermaid, and even though I don't like them, I don't mind.)

Maybe you'll say it's not that bad, cuz I got a rainbow, bows, cards, and a lollipop the same size as them. HOWEVER I got 5 freaking unicorns lol. Why couldn't I get 5 rainbows? (I got 1) Or 5 bows? (I got 2) Or five bunny/bear heads? (I got one of each) Why did it have to be ugly unicorns? Maybe what I'm saying is stupid, but I need to say ittt. Maybe they were just randomly chosen, although I doubt that.

I admit I did get 7 Hello Kitty cabochons that I'm not complaining about, since they're small as I expected and I like HK. So I guess if you're into big unicorns and flat-hearts pieces and "kawaii" flat-pieces, you'll like it.

Overall, I'm satisfied with my purchase. I would give it 3 stars and a half, maybe 4 stars. I thought the pieces would be more damaged but they were not. I like most of them and the quantity is good to last me a while.

But I won't re-order these because this was mainly to satisfy my curiosity - they are not the main type of decoration I work with in my deco projects even though I do plan on using a couple of them. Also I really didn't like getting these 14 cabochons.

This is what I had to say about my first order with Sophie & Toffee. As I said, it still has a 4.5 stars rating, so maybe it's just me who's not fully satisfied. I read reviews about the shop on other blogs, and what people received is really good quality (but the quality wasn't the problem either for me as it was very good). I may place another order in the future for stuffs that are not randomly picked, so then I will know 100% what to expect.

Thankyu

Decorating eyeglass case

A couple of weeks ago, while looking for inspiration on Pinterest, I stumbled upon a cute blinged camera (here) made by a blogger. On her blog, I saw she had also decorated her eyeglass case (here). And she also made other really cute stuff. I think she's really good.
I would have probably never thought of decorating my eyeglass case if it wasn't for this article. Even though her blog has not been updated for a while, I look forward to seeing her next posts and creations.

♥ ♥ ♥

Tbh I regret a bit not keeping it like this... looks cute enough.

I don't know why I continued adding on stuff. -_-

The lace turned yellow which doesn't really match with the white lace; quite disappointing. If I deco another case in a similar style, I want the lace to match together. I also want to add less stuff in the future. But it still looks cuter than the orange case it used to be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Camera Bling (Fail)

I was looking gyaru pictures on the internet (the agejo look is so pretty! didn't know this sub-style) and got the sudden urge to bling the heck out of my camera. I don't think it really looks agejo but I believe it is still attention-grabbing and shiny. Also funny how I made a post on this blog almost three years ago when I acquired this camera.. (here - in French)

The camera still works great! Although it's slower than before and has a hard time focusing most of the time.

Progress. Click to enlarge.

By the way, I put these pics because I personally 

like when people post the process of anything they decorated.

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Here's a (blurry) gif, but it still can't show the full shininess of the camera. ± _ ±

It's always difficult to take pictures of blinged things cause the colors and brightness never look the same as in real life.

I think the result is ok. Actually, it would have looked wayyy better with a white camera... there is a lot of black because I couldn't fill in with smaller rhinestones. I definitely need to work on this because empty spots don't look good (especially when the background does not harmonize with the deco).

--- The text above was written on August 6th. If you want to know the fail just keep reading.

So today it's August 13th and yesterday, I broke my camera while blinging it. Very stupid how it happened. I had a couple of days ago just received some 2.5mm Swarovski rhinestones I had ordered online, and yesterday while blinging the back of my camera, the thought of what AB crystals would have looked like on the zoom thing (instead of the black rhinestones) crossed my mind so I tried one just to see. But the rhinestone fell and went between the glass surface and the thin lid that closes and opens to protect the glass (sorry my camera knowledge really sucks.)
I had a small panic attack and tried to get it back, but it went somewhere inside the camera. I couldn't really believe what had just happened, because it happened so fast. So I just turned on and off my camera a couple of times and it was working fine. But a couple hours later, the power button wouldn't work anymore, it was blocked, and then it restarted working again, but minutes later the zoom blocked and now my camera is broken. I tried to get the rhinestone by disassembling it, but I got two electric shocks and it ended up a fail. Was a very shitty day yesterday. And some people in my house don't seem to get how long it takes, at least for me, to make this. Money yes, but especially effort and patience. I'm not just sticking random pearls and rhinestones together and voilà (others may think it works like this because they find it so ugly.) Well, I actually wished it was that easy, then I wouldn't be so disappointed by what happened. So it's just frustrating when they say things like, "You know what I'd do right now, is take that camera and throw it in there [the garbage]. Anyway, there's way too much stuff on this."
I'm just ranting. Well, this is my blog that practically no one reads so ranting here is quite nice. Yeah. And I know this is my fault because I decided out of my own will to see what would an AB crystal look like there, and then not handling the situation appropriately. I wasn't careful. So I'm not even frustrated, just disappointed.
At first, I was looking for a new camera to transfer the bling on, then I thought about buying the same model where I would just transfer the "outer-case" (because it's just the inside that's broken) on. But it would be spending money on something I shouldn't have had to spend on in the first place. So I'm gonna assume my mistake and do nothing. If "everything TRULY DOES happens for a reason", then I'm expecting something more than amazing to come to me to make up for what happened. Or maybe this is just a punishment because I had planned to do my readings for school starting the 1st of August and continued on blinging my camera instead. Anyway here are pictures of what I was working on.

Ranting done, thanks.