I used to be a makeup hoarder- for good reasons. I did a lot of people's makeup for weddings, concerts, photo shoots, theater, sleepovers... all the fun things. One of the easiest things to collect and hoard besides lipstick is eyeshadow. One of the cheapest ways to buy eyeshadow is in the big palettes full of a plethora of colors most people will never wear.

If you know makeup then you know that some eyeshadows are not intense. They make look intense in the package but they usually have more base product powder than they do pigment powder. If you didn't want to make paint out of them then you could use them like a pan (chalk pastel) for light shading and coloring in your mixed media.

I wanted to turn mine into something I can actually use at this stage in my life- paint. I thought if I could break them down into pigment powders and mix them with a binding medium then I could paint with them. The hardest part turned out to be breaking down the eyeshadow into a fine powder. I scraped the eyeshadow into a Mortar and Pestle Grinder Set and I was able to grind the powder up even finer. I then added some matte medium (Mod Podge/liquid glue) and a little bit of FLOOD/PPG Floetrol Additive to thin it out. It was a little grainy/chalky but that didn't bother me. I'm sure if I ground it up finer then it wouldn't have been but grinding even this much up was a JOB.

I only tried this one pan set for starters and while it didn't make a whole lot, I was able to fully paint a 8.5 x 11 journal page with it. The best part about this color was that it had that metallic/shimmer effect from the mica powder mixed in. 

MATERIALS:
-Cheap Eyeshadow
-Mortar and Pestle Grinder Set
-Mod Podge Sealer, Glue and Finish- Matte
-FLOOD/PPG Floetrol Additive