My Home-made CD Eyeshadow Palette

As a makeup addict, I have accumulated a lot of eye shadows over time and opening/closing a whole bunch of them everyday is not a fun thing to do. I prefer my eye shadows to be classified and grouped in an organized manner that only require me to open and close once every time I use them. After a while, I finally decided to make myself an eyeshadow palette using a magnetic sheet and an empty CD case. It turned out to be very pretty and convenient and let me show you mine as well as how to do it.

My ghetto eyeshadow palette from the inside
It holds 12 eye shadows and costs me less than a dollar to make!

As you may know, MAC Pro sells empty palettes with 4 and 15 wells for eye shadows and 6 for blushes. Each of them is $15 USD which is not that cheap for something just to hold your eye shadows. Moreover, I live no where near a MAC Pro store so unless I want to buy MAC empty palettes by phone, I have to make my own. Again, they are not that difficult to make and the whole process does not take a lot of time.

What you need:

• An empty CD case: remove the part that holds the CD as well as the CD itself. You can keep the cover for decorating purpose if you want but I prefer to use my own.
• A magnetic sheet with adhesive backing: this can be found at craft store such as Joann's or Michael's. Mine is a pre-cut pack of four 4x6 inch magnetic sheets that's priced at $2.99 USD.
• A pair of scissors to cut the magnetic sheet
• Pencil and pen
  
• Paper, cut in the same size as the CD art cover
  
• Eyeshadow pans (or depotted eye shadows): there are many ways to depot eye shadows that you can find online, I just use the method that uses heat. Also, you can buy eyeshadow pans from MAC which is cheaper than potted eye shadows.
• (Optional) Cute picture cut to the same size as the CD art cover to use as the new cover
  

How to do a home-made CD palette:

1.Using the CD cover as a template, sketch the shape to the magnetic sheet. Then use scissors to cut it out.

2.Peel the adhesive backing and paste the magnetic sheet to the empty CD on the side that used to hold the CD.

3. Add eyeshadow pans to the magnetic part of the CD: if you depotted your MAC eyeshadow, it will not stick to the palette so you will need to cut out small pieces of magnetic strips and adhere to the pan. Make sure you test out if your pan can adhere to the palette by itself before adding the magnetic strip.

Will look something like this after you're done with step 3

4. Using the blank paper, make swatches of the eye shadows according to their positions in the palette and write their names accordingly: I know EnKore suggested you taking pictures of each color and using Photoshop to label them. However, this method requires you to use a software that you may not have and a color printer that you may not have access to. Making swatches to the paper is faster and much easier, it just requires you and your hands!

It should look something like this after attaching to the back of the front cover

5. Beautify it with a picture

I use a picture from Victoria's Secret

The last step is for you to do whatever you want: you can cut a picture from a catalog, paint your own picture, leave it bare, etc. The possibilities are endless! I use a bit of scotch tape to hold the picture and eyeshadow menu together.

The CD palette is fun to make and affordable. Since my magnetic sheet is not wide enough, my CD palette can hold 12 eye shadows. However, with a wider-size sheet, you can comfortably hold 16 eye shadows. Moreover, this type of palette does not restrict you to a certain shape or size of eyeshadow: you can put square eye shadows or mix with blushes to create a portable traveling palette. If you travel, make sure to wrap it well in bubble wrap as it's a bit fragile.

Right now I'm on my 3rd palette and because I have more colors, I can assemble them in different groups: neutrals, bronze, blues, greens,etc. My CD palettes are cute and does not take up a lot of space at all!

That's all folks! If you have done a CD palette before, please share the experience. If you're curious and want to ask me questions, fire them up already! I'd love to hear from you.

Take care,
Your Makeup Blogger

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