Friday, January 16, 2015

Decorated Sunglasses

With the new baby at home, I wanted to try branching out into glittering other (smaller) things besides shoes, so I started doing some sunglasses this year.

Like Nyx purses or Muses shoes, the Krewe of Iris throws hand-decorated sunglasses. According to this article, Iris chose sunglasses in honor of the fact that they've never had to cancel their parade due to inclement weather, which is especially impressive considering the Krewe's existed since 1917.

I love the idea of working on something wearable - the challenges for sunglasses as a "canvas" are totally different and I've been having so much fun with that. The online community for Iris sunglasses decorators isn't as big as Nyx or Muses (yet), but you can find a few examples on Instagram, Facebook, etc. My Pinterest research page (limited though it may be) is here.

In my first go I made these four pairs:

Purple and gold butterfly sunglasses with aurora borealis rhinestones:

Purple jeweled sunglasses:

Rainbow sequined heart sunglasses:

And, my favorite, teal peacock sunglasses:

I modified my shoe glittering technique to be better suited to sunglasses (I'm still working it out, but getting pretty happy with it now that I've done a few pairs). I wanted to use a lot of purple (to invoke iris blossoms) and rainbows (because Iris is the personification of the rainbow in Greek mythology). I was inspired by this pair of DIY turkey sunglasses, but thought I'd do it as a peacock (Iris' favorite bird) instead. I made the little peacock body with foam, glitter and little crystal rhinestone eyes.

I put the writing ("2015," "Hail, Iris" and "Krewe of Iris") on the sides of the glasses:


Here is my gorgeous sister modeling them:






Pretty good start, looking forward to making more!
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11 comments:

  1. TKFebruary 23, 2015 at 5:24 PM

    Just found your blog and I absolutely love your work! I'm also a new Iris rider and am looking forward to decorating sunglasses in the upcoming year. Can I ask what you used for the base of the butterfly and peacock designs?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. NoriFebruary 27, 2015 at 1:59 PM

      Oh yay!! I was really hoping to get some Iris sunglasses ladies reading the blog! You are very welcome, thanks for coming!

      I intend to blog about this further in the future, but my two main sources for sunglasses are Michael's and Oriental Trading. The butterfly sunglasses are from Michael's, but are unfortunately a seasonal item so they're probably sold out by now. They come out with a bunch of fun shaped sunglasses around Christmas that are $2.99 a pair. I went in and bought a bunch of butterfly and heart sunglasses with a 20% off coupon, so they were $2.40/pair for pretty good quality and fun shapes. Oriental Trading sells a bunch of cheap sunglasses, but I think the Black Nomad are the only ones that are reasonable quality-wise. They're 10 for a dozen, so less than $1/pair, which is great. I'm always looking to try and strike a balance between cheap enough to throw and good enough quality to be worth the time and love it takes to decorate them. So the peacock glasses are just plain frames, but I made the peacock "body" out of foam.

      I don't know if you're on Pinterest, but I've been gathering ideas/techniques/inspiration here if you're interested: https://www.pinterest.com/shoeglitternola/decorated-diy-sunglasseskrewe-of-iris/

      For butterfly shaped frames, you could try something like this: http://bywilma.com/diy/diy-crazy-party-sunglasses/

      using glitter foam sheets like these: http://www.amazon.com/Craft-10-Pack-Sheets-7-Inch-Glitter/dp/B009GIF5YS/ref=sr_1_1?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1425074265&sr=1-1&keywords=glitter+foam+sheets

      Delete
  2. reneeMay 8, 2015 at 8:41 PM

    Hi! I've been riding in Iris for about 25 years. I just found your blog - and will follow to get more ideas. Having been an avid scrapbooker for many years I have tons of embellishments hanging around I can use!
    Plush Appeal also has fair decent quality sunglasses for not a lot of money (and an additional discount if you tell them you're with a Krewe). Also big bottles of amazing colors of glitter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. NoriJune 11, 2015 at 6:09 AM

    Awesome, always happy to have Iris ladies visit! I'm going to try to post my tips on working with sunglasses here soon. Thanks for the Plush Appeal tip, I'd never heard of them and definitely need to check then out!!

    ReplyDelete
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