DIY Eyeshadow Palette

But first, there were only two colors I did not plan put into this palette, my two everyday favorites that I often take with me – YDK from Urban Decay and Kitten by Stila. To do this project I collected the shadows I wanted to combine and judged what size tray I would need. Based on the quantity I decided to purchase the a Large Black Z Palette and while I did not need nearly that many I had Amazon Prime send me 1/2 Round Disc Magnets with Adhesive Backing.  These were the only two things I needed to purchase for this DIY.  You can follow along with the simple steps below: 

To start you need to use the iron to heat up the back of each eyeshadow pan.  You can use a straightener but I thought an iron would be easier. (Plus I was more willing to get sticky stuff on my iron versus my straightener).  By applying the heat it warms up, and thus loosens the glue allowing the pan to separate from the container.

Contrary to the instructions I read, you need to hold the eyeshadow palette to the iron for way more than ten seconds – I was averaging about 60.  Also, if your eyeshadows have stickers on the back, which almost all of them do with the brand and color, make sure you take those off because the iron will melt them immediately.

One thing I do have to warn you – it starts to really smell like burning plastic.  With my Urban Decay single shadows in particular I would place it on for five seconds at a time to make sure it did not melt on to the iron.  When you are removing the pan  be careful that the knife does not slip and dig in to the pan. If it does, you will get a nice dent like the one below.

The easiest part actually consisted of breaking apart this Urban Decay Book of Shadows 4 that I have had for the past two years. Once I ripped apart all of the cardboard holding it together the pans popped out quite easily – thank goodness!

Once all of the pans were successfully out of their cases I was able to begin applying the magnets.  For the small square shadows, I used one and for the larger pans I used three to give them some balance in the Z-Palette.