Tuesday Tutorial 1: Simple Hair Sticks

Day 17 - A picture of your mp3 player

My poor long suffering ipod! It's almost four now and other than the occasional glitch here and there (like the best of Das Ich randomly deciding to disappear 0_o) it's still going strong :D

Now onto the hair stick tutorial!

When my brother and I eat at Chinese restaurants we eat with chopsticks, we know how to do it, and we like to show off (terrible I know, but it's incredibly funny when you glance around and watch other people trying to copy and shooting broccoli across their tables).

About a year ago I went to a Chinese Buffet with Kev and I automatically picked up two sets of chopsticks because I'm so used to doing so, turns out he doesn't use them so I put the other set (the buffet uses disposable chopsticks) in my handbag.

I always intended to turn them into hair sticks, but well I didn't have much hair at the time so it seemed a little pointless.

I still don't really have enough hair but I thought I'd make them now as my first tutorial.

Now these are super basic instructions on how to make these out of things you'd probably have to hand, once you grasp the basic idea it's pretty easy to make something a little more complicated.

You will need:

Wooden or bamboo chopsticks

fine sandpaper

Coloured nail varnish (it's probably best not to go for a pearlescent shade as the wood might show through)

Nail decorations/Sequins

Superglue

Clear or glitter nail varnish

The first step is to sand the chopsticks smooth, as if you didn't they'd catch in your hair and cause split ends.

Next, paint one side of each stick with your nail varnish (I used Barry M Nail Paint in Neon Pink), I found the best way to do this without them sticking to the paper was to paint each one in four equal parts.

Try to coat them evenly, depending on the intensity of colour you may need to do two coats.

Next take your nail decorations and glue them to the tops of the chopsticks. It's best to make a plan of where you want them before glueing them down.

Wait for the glue to dry, turn them over and do the same on the back.

If required do the sides to.

The final step is to seal everything with a coat of clear, or glitter nail varnish, again it's best to do this in four equal sections so they don't stick to the paper.

Et Voila!

Bonus close up of bun fail (I just don't have enough hair yet) :D