***Tutorial***
Don't throw away your boring smartphone cover! Add your own artwork and bling with mod podge, paper, paint and crystals! I will show you how I did it... I have a Samsung Galaxy 3, this cover is a cheaper one I had bought at Wally's, the brand was Body Glove. I am not sure I would do this on the more expensive Otter brands however! This case I had used awhile and it was getting a bit abused looking. I decided to try some artwork on it, now that is one sweet looking phone cover!
Before I get into the tutorial I want to talk about Mod Podge and some accessories I found! Firstly, is there anything at all not to love about mod podge? It is amazing stuff and can be used for so many things. I use if for many applications. It comes in gloss, matte, for paper and more.
Look what I found at Hobby Lobby! This is a silicone matte that you can be messy on and mod podge, hot glue etc.. will just peel off of it for easy clean up! I love it.... here I show it and the box it came in, the price was 9.99.
This is a nifty way to roll mod modge on a larger project, just put mod podge in the bottle, screw on the roller and start in!
Oh I love this one!!! These are little silicone finger protectors so that hot glue won't burn your fingers! I cannot tell you how many times I have burnt my fingers when I use hot glue. You can even use these for other applications as well, whatever you use and do not want your fingers to get into.
Here is some of the mod podge types there are. I bought matte paper mod podge for this, but next time will buy the gloss as well. For the smartphone case I ended up liking the gloss over the matte.
Here is how my phone cover looked before I started the decorating process! Again, I would buy the gloss mod podge for paper instead of the matte you see here.
I wiped the surface down with some alcohol to give me a dirt-free surface to work with.
Next I found some pretty scrapbooking paper that went well with the color of the phone cover. I thought this blended well!
Turn the paper upside down on the part of the paper you liked the best.
Trace around the phone case, this can be rough, no need to be picky here since we only need a general outline now. Cut out...
Now.... lay the paper over the case and take a ball point stylus like shown here and go around the inside edge where you want the paper to be. This will score the paper and give you an outline to cut on. This will be your template.
Here you can see that when I lifted the paper from the phone case the score lines are clearly visible. Cut this out on the score line with sharp scissors.
This picture shows the scissors I use. It looks like the fit is nice! I will go with it.
Brush on a layer of mod podge to the back-side of the paper. As you can see I am not worrying about being messy on the mod podge matte since I can peel it off later!
The paper is glued onto the phone case, smooth out any air pockets etc.. with your fingers and let this dry for a couple of hours. I did not cut out the smaller holes yet, once it is dry it will be easier to take an x-acto knife and cut them out.
Once dry, I took my stylus and rand it around the edge, I seen that I had a bit of excess paper where I did not want it so I cut if off with a sharp knife.
I also carefully cut out the holes on my phone case with the sharp knife. It is time to decorate this. The sky's the limit here, whatever you can think to do here is fine.
Here were some of my considerations, a paper butterfly I had painted and glitzed up, some dried flowers, rhinestones. Hmmmm not sure yet.....
Perhaps these flowers, glass beads, glitter....??? The painter in me is now wanting to paint on this paper!! If you are a stamper you could stamp this as well and decorate.
I am going to do a simple one-stroke flower using Donna Dewberry's method. I have two puddles of paint together one in white, the other in purple to load my brush into. Donna Dewberry has many painting books on how to make one-stroke flowers, I highly recommend them if you want to learn this. Like I said earlier, you could stamp and color if you like stamping.
I practiced a few strokes on my foam plate as you can see before actually doing it on my phone! Once I had it I made my petals. I used acrylics, they seem to work just fine on paper!
I used two colors of yellow and some white to make the flower center. Use a dry scruffy type brush like shown here to do it. Pounce the color in.
Center is in! I also floated some purple on the edges and around the holes.
I took an angle brush and loaded it in green and dipped the tip in some white to stroke on the stem. I loaded a flat brush in green and white and did some one stroke leaves as well.
I painted on a happy flower face with some black. I added some pink cheeks and used a liner to make the mouth, eyebrows and nose. This is a quick and simple face, not too much fussing here. I added a small float of purple where the yellow meets the flower to add more depth.
I had a cute paper cut-out of this bee so I added some mod podge to the back and stuck it on. I now brushed on a coat of gloss mod podge, before it was dry I lightly sprinkled on some glamour dust glitter.
Let the coats of mod podge dry 15 - 20 minutes between coats, add more glitter if you want. I added three good coats mod podge until it had a nice heavy glossy finish. Add as many coats as you like, the more coats the more durable it will be.
Look! the mod podge really does peel off....:-)
I wanted some glitter on the side design so I brushed on some mod podge and before it dried sprinkled on some purple glitter.
I did the sprinkling over a plate so I could put the excess back in the bottle when I was finished. Once dry add another top layer of mod podge and let dry.
I am liking this, I do think I will leave a hint of the original phone color by leaving the top and bottom free of mod podge or glitter. I have some Swarovski crystals I think need to be on here! We love our smartphones so nothing it too good when it comes to making our phones a fashion statement.
You will need some crystals or rhinestones (cheaper) , a tweezer and some grrrip glue. I like grrrip glue for setting the stones because it is flexible clear glue that glues like the dickens. It says on the bottle that one of the applications is for decoupage so I feel this will work great. It is important with whatever you are doing to use the right glues for the application you are working on. Pick up a stone with your tweezer's and put a good layer of glue on the backs with a toothpick, lay them in position and let them dry well. NOTE: This craft glue is usually not found in local craft stores but you can find it online.
Isn't this fun!! Try to make your own custom phone case, I guarantee you will have a ball doing it. I wish you could see how sparkly my custom smartphone cover is in real life! I hope this gets the creative juices flowing, the ideas for this are endless.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, now go and create!!
