Violet. Frills, lace, pearls and video games. Sometimes Hime Gyaru. Loves rain, hates summer. Workaholic multi-tasking champion. Likes a good cup of tea, hates to run out of Buenos. Wants a puppy, is a house cat. Currently living in Melbourne, Australia.
This edition starts with a delicious Korean restaurant James and I visited :D
I tried Kimchi for the first time.
The was the reaction mwahahaha
We ate way to much food that day! I always over eat when there are side dishes.
Melbourne architecture? I like how pointy these modern buildings are.
That same day we went to have poke around the State Library, it’s sooo pretty!
The architecture up te top is just amazing.
It’s a quiet room so there’s no talking there but the security guard said you’re allowed to take as many photos as you like.
I totally took advantage of that, can you imagine having a real photoshoot here? It would be amazing!
I wish I’d been here to study, it looks so relaxing *_*
Seeing as we’re on the topic of architecture and beautiful buildings enjoy some more :D
You can’t really see it well in the photo but this one actually had big yellow dollar signs on it XD
I tried a Malaysian drink I can’t remember the name of when Celeste was back in town to visit, it had lots of condensed milk and writing this now I’m totally craving condensed milk again!
Dinner out with Celina and Toby too, wow I ate out a lot this time XD
It was pooouring down rain that night and pretty cold, the lights at Southbank were beautiful but I stepped in a really deep puddle on the way home and soaked both my shoe and stockings >_< So stupid that I didn’t see it, I was too busy talking!
The pretty riverscape made up for it though!
I want to have fairy lights in trees like this in my future home too, it just looks so magical!
I kind of want to find a way to string fairy lights around our current place too. We had them all around the bedroom at our last place but there is no way to hang them here because we’re not even allowed bluetac or sticky hooks on the walls ;_; Maybe I could hang them around the windows so it reflected on the mirror or something.
Quite a while ago (yes surprise I’m behind on things) I modeled in the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival for Glamaz Melbourne.
Glamaz is a local store which imports Japanese brand clothes including a lot of Gyaru brands. LIKE!
They asked me to model LizLisa for them and I was like “HELL YES!” :D Anyway I’m sure you’re more interested in photos!
Myself, Yolada, Risa and Julia
Julia wore my favorite dress of the night, she is SO pretty *_*Ruru represented rock style, she had the most amazing hair, I wish I had better photos of it.
Risa was in sweet style with me and she suited it so well even though she usually wears rock style! I really wanted the playsuit she was wearing, it was so soft and warm looking *_*
Julia and I.
This was Risa’s second dress of the night, again so pretty! All of the clothes were amazing.
More photos of us during the dress rehearsal:
Yolada (in blue) was helper for the night and she was so organised! None of us had dinner so she went out and bought us candy to snack on until the end :D
Me during rehearsal, this dress is one of mine because my actual outfit was a super hot jacket.
Here are screencaps from the video of the actual show, I’m editing it at the moment so up soon!
The show was sold out and there were 3 big rooms with so many people they were standing packed along the run way to get a look *_*
James video’d it all so I’ll post that soon too. Luckily I didn’t trip or make a fool of myself hahaha!
That was such a wonderful night and the other girls were absolutely lovely! Definitely check out Glamaz at Fashion Park if you’re in town.
Of course it wouldn’t be snapshots if I didn’t notice something hilarious, in the kitchen that we were waiting in back stage I spotted this potato on a shelf:
There was anther one next to it which I couldn’t get a clear shot of which had the answer “Don’t ask me!” XD Small things amuse me!
Now to less glamorous snapshots XD
I won a little cat from claw machine!
James won a turtle:
So cute, hot chocolate cup that comes with ready made marshmallows XD
I saw some buildings being destroyed to make way for what I think is going to be a new shopping center. Really interesting to watch.
It was raining the other week and there was a wedding party of cars which made Little Collins St look like something out of the 1920′s!
I love the buildings on Little Collins already but the rain just makes everything that much more beautiful.
When I was going to meet Vanessa we randomly ran into Meg and her partner visiting! Such good luck XD
Later on Vanessa spotted this hilarious men’s button down shirt in a discount store we were in XD
She was stunningly dressed as always.
Bergamot had a good month too being dragged around town, she is getting a bit dirty though so she needs a wash XD
I laughed a little too hard at this restaurant’s tag line…
and one last shot of some pretty buildings and good weather.
What are you guys up to this week?
This sentence is brought to you from our friends at ghd:
If you want to create a nice hairstyle you can use tools like hair straighteners for more than just straightening your hair. You can straighten, curl or create many other styles for your hair.
Snapshots time… finally! And you know what? I found a random folder I never posted originally so we’re starting off with photos from last year!
There was a Kiehl’s and Shu uemura event last year to see their new product lines :D
I picked the blue look out of the two new palettes and was expertly made over :D
My beautiful make up artist:
She had the most insanely beautiful lashes!
Me after the make over:
After that we all switched places and I got my skin tested at the Kiehl’s section. My skin expert was HILARIOUS! there was time left over after the important skin testing so we spent most of it discussing margarita exploits XD He was absolutely awesome and I wish he worked in the city store so I could go chat again!
Pretty gift sets, I know I’m a sucker for anything in a bag >_<
… or that comes with a bear…
Next up in my folder of oldness was a trip to the Youtube Partner’s meeting. I stopped off to take some photos at Melbourne Central on the way. No matter how many times I go here I really like looking at the shot tower, it’s so trippy!
The decorations at the time were still all Christmasy.
Outfit for the day!
I forgot how much fun curls like this are, now I want to wear them again tonight XD
The partner’s meeting was lot of fun, lots to learn but it was awesome to meet people who have similar interests to me!
With friendly Youtubers:
Afterwards Celina, Toby, James and I went for a quick dinner to work through all of the notes we took. Between the two of us being insane note takers I think we almost wrote it word for word XD
Next up I went to the opening of Topshop in December! There were so many events last year it really tired me out so this year I’m slowing down a lot more and doing more interesting things rather than just going to events. I can’t wait to go strawberry picking and visit the other Zoo and check out new markets, so many things to do in Melbourne and I’m going to do as many of them as I can :D
Anyway now, rambly tangent aside look at the pretty chairs at Topshop! Another case of chair envy.
The hat I totally almost bought and am still tempted to go back for…
More of me doing the same pose in every picture XD Yeaaaah….
The sky was so pretty that night, it looked like a big neon painting.
More recently James spotted this pretty car. He’s a big lover of classic cars, he even had a 1963 Valiant Regal AP5… whatever that means. We couldn’t afford to bring it to Melbourne though so it got sold. One day when I’m a bajillionaire I’m going to buy it again for him or maybe a Charger or something similar :D
Here are some pretty window displays I found recently. I think I want to make some of these stars to hang around the house. I worry that hanging them out make the apartment feel even smaller though.
Yeah I kind of took a look of photos of these but they were really pretty XD
And one of the few good photos I have of James, he never stands still enough for them!
And one last one of some weird festival thing I walked past where fairies on stilts were blowing bubbles.
So you’ve probably noticed the lack of craft here lately. It’s come from a combination of having no crafting time and being uninspired.
My life is very heavily scheduled, until this year James and I didn’t take weekend or evenings off and when one thing goes out of whack the rest tends to follow quickly until I feel I’m constantly treading water instead of actually moving forward. And for a while that works, I’ve crossed off so many long term projects from my list this year and I’m making decent progress toward some more, but eventually I just get burned out.
I’ve been running around so much trying to get things done that the house is a mess and when the house is a mess I feel less like doing things. It snowballs until I end up back in front of the computer for 14 hours a day rather than crafting or doing something creative. And if I do have a minute spare all I want to do is procrastinate. I’ve gotten distracted already several times just writing this article >_<
Being in an apartment that isn’t particularly appealing doesn’t inspire me and if I’m not inspired I just don’t want to craft.
So it’s time to do something about that :D
Welcome to my new series “Violet and Jimmy’s Home Sweet Home” ^_^
We’ve lived in this apartment for almost 2 years now (in fact my birthday is the 2 year anniversary) and in that entire time I’ve never done much to make it ours because we only ever sign a 6 month lease and every six months I think:
Oh well there’s no point getting new furniture, I can’t afford it, I don’t have any time to DIY something that big. We’re only going to be here for another 6 months anyway…
Oh well there’s no point unpacking those boxes, we’re only going to be here for another 6 months anyway…
Oh well there’s no point getting/making nicer things, they probably won’t fit in with my awesome new decorating colour scheme when we move into our dream home and we’re only going to be here for another 6 months anyway…
And after 2 years worth of “we’re only going to be here for another 6 months” I’m at the point that I’m sick of waiting for *someday* and I am more interested in *right now*. Someday is when we’ll finally get that dream apartment but there’s really no reason that I should sit around making excuses to live in a place that doesn’t look the way I want until then. RightNow is a very important step to get to Someday and so it’s time to do something about.
This series is going to be something different. It’s going to be 1 part rambling post like this, 1 part craft tutorials as I go and 1 part art journaling the progress.
It will be on going, I have a whole apartment to make pretty and when we do finally own our first home I will obviously have that too. Hopefully some of you who are in the same boat as I am can relate to this and it will inspire you to stop waiting around and give things a go!
So the first step to changing things is making goals.
Throughout these posts you will see my diary pages which are a combination of pen, water colours and stickers. I don’t have neat hand writing and my style tends to be very chaotic so I will provide transcripts below them with other notes included. My math teacher used to say that clever people always had terrible hand writing because their brains worked faster than their hands could and that’s what I’m sticking to ;)
Also my spelling and grammar sucks so there you go!
So what am I trying to get out of this project?
To make every part of the house pretty without losing functionality -> I don’t think functional and beautiful are mutually exclusive. Our house needs to be practical so I refuse to settle for less function just because something is pretty.
To spend as little money as possible -> I have pretty much no budget for this so I’m probably not going to spend anything unless it comes out of the change jar. (Oh who am I kidding, all THAT money goes to claw machine!)
Regain my creativity and problem solving skills -> Not doing things regularly makes me lazy and I don’t like that.
Replace all ugly things -> Our place is full of mismatched junk that we’ve collected over the years which I want to replace or rework so it’s visually appealing as well.
Practice decorating for our real home -> Use this space to decide on the themes and colours we want for the next place.
Stop procrastinating! -> Self explanatory, stop over thinking things so much and just do them! *she types as she has an article about the Titanic, Realestate.com.au and Youtube open in the other tabs* >_>
Surround ourselves with beauty -> I think if our place is brighter and happier then James and I probably will be too.
Stop waiting and start DOING! -> Well… duh ^_^
Basically I want to go through everything we have and reevaluate whether it should be here. If I can make it better I will but if it’s something that doesn’t fit and has no use it will be de-cluttered!
So what kind of obstacles will I be up against?
Lack of inspiration
Lack of money
Lack of time
Inspiration isn’t something that I can magic up but I think that by having a well kept to do list with a range of small quick projects as well as the bigger ones I can combat that. Money is something I can control to a certain extent and I will work harder at putting some savings together but realistically I’m just going to try to reuse the things I already have in different ways and burn through my craft stash.
Time will probably be the biggest killer here. James and I have been trying to cut back on working after hours so no more nights and weekends which is nice but not particularly realistic. To a certain extent at least, working for yourself means working when there’s work and that means sometimes you have to do late nights or weekends. What I am going to do is make an effort to have at least one evening a week for doing these projects. If possible I will actually do them in the mornings so I can take better quality photos and not have to set up flashes but that will obviously depend on schedules.
I think posting here about it will make me feel a lot more accountable especially for procrastinating because I’ll feel guilty if I don’t follow through XD
Funnily enough I think it also has a bit to do with what we have to watch or do in the evenings. I always do my best craft when we’re watching great TV or playing great games but nothing is really grabbing my attention at the moment. I’ve re-watched most of my favorites fairly recently and James is playing Grand Turismo 5 which is one of the most boring games of all time to watch. Let me know if you have any good recommendations!
So all in all I’m feeling pretty good about this! I’m looking forward to doing some of the projects I’ve been wanting to tackle for years and I’m really looking forward to having and awesome looking apartment which will make me feel great until we can buy our first place.
Hopefully it will be a good start to make bigger changes and better things for the future and I hope you all enjoy it too ^_^
Super props if you actually read all of that, I think this is the most I’ve written here in months… so that’s a good start *_*
Last weekend I was invited to visit a Japanese hair and nail salon in Prahran called Tsumiki Design. I’ve decided not to go to many events this year because I want to focus more on crafting and having time for James and myself but when I got the invitation for the Tsumiki event I couldn’t RSVP fast enough… a Japanese salon!? With stylists specialising in Japanese techniques!? And Japanese nail art!? YES PLEASE!
I’d honestly given up looking for a place like this in Aus a long time ago after several bad experiences but I always get my hopes up when something new hair or nail related comes up so my brain said full steam ahead :D
Celina, James and I arrived a bit early and were greeted at the door with delicious orange mocktails. The decor of the salon was so luxurious, everything looked like it was from a magazine, so beautiful!
We relaxed on the beautiful antique looking couches and flicked through Japanese magazines looking at hair and nail designs. They had all of my favorite magazines including Nail Up and ViVi. At this point I also starting making mental notes of the decorations in the place because I kind of want our dream house in this style XD
I have couch-envy:
I know I need to stop posting decor photos and start talking about my experience but SO PRETTY!
After everyone arrived and we had settled in with our magazines and drinks we were introduced to the salon owner Taka, his stylists and the representative for Yuko straightening system.
We watched a video of a model getting her hair treated with the system and the change was pretty amazing, I have frizzy hair so it’s something I’ve always wondered about doing so watching the video made me want to learn more about it. I tend to like the volume my frizz gives though because it makes my hair look like cotton candy so I don’t know if I could commit to completely straight silky hair, I’d love to see how easy it is to curl and style treated hair afterward though. Have any of you guys tried this kind of system? Did you enjoy the results?
Next we all broke off to get treatments done, some girls went to get their hair styled while the rest of us went for nails. Celina was first up for nails because she needed to leave early and I sat in on her appointment to watch and take some photos :D
The nail artist at Tsumiki is none other than Clara H who has a great reputation around Melbourne for doing the best Japanese style 3D artwork. I’d seen her work before online and she’d been recommended to me so I was excited to see her work and get to experience it first hand!
She did little flowers on Celina’s fingers and they looked lovely. She needed something work appropriate and the end result looked really beautiful.
I was next in line for nails but unfortunately I had some stick-ons which I’d hastily done that morning thinking there wouldn’t be enough time for us all to get our nails done. Because of the time constraints Clara removed my stick ons and redid some nicer ones with a beautiful floral bow design. She invited me to come back when there wasn’t a time limit so she could try out something more over the top and do full acrylics. I can’t wait to show you all the other set she did, they are AWESOME! Hint: they are themed on a certain bunny mascot who’s name begins with B and ends with ERGAMOT :D
Wall of TINS polish… now I have polish envy too! XD
There were very fancy Hors D’oeuvres too by a famous local chef.
While we got our nails done the other girls were being treated to head massages and cut/colour/treatments. I was last through the hair area I think and it was nice because it gave me a chance to chat to the stylists as well as Taka himself!
I was given a shampoo and a lovely head massage then they completely blow dried my hair straight. Zomg it looks so long straight! Especially since I just cut a bunch of it off *_*
I didn’t want to do a cut/colour at the time so Taka suggested doing big crazy waves for styling instead and I loved that idea because I’ve never seen myself with waves. They had 3 stylists working to wave each section and tease it up with powders, it was so much fun watching the transformation in the mirror! I loved the style, it reminded me of Kumickey’s older mermaid hair :D SO CUTE! Actually having my hair like this makes me think getting a perm so I could do it properly for a few months!
Mermaid!
Once everyone was styled and had beautiful nails we were given a lot of information about the different products and sponsors of the store and I found quite a few products in the gift bag which I was interested in especially the Yuko Aqua G Base Hair Water which I’ve already started using.
So overall, I felt like a princess the entire time I was at the salon. The design and fit out really give a feeling of luxury and I found it really easy to drift off and relax in such a nice setting. The staff were genuinely friendly and really went out of their way to make our stay relaxing. I know it wasn’t just politeness put on for the event too because when I went back to get my nails done by Clara today every single one of them remembered me, asked questions following on from last time and were just as lovely. So yes I would totally recommend both the salon section and the nail section if you’re interested in Japanese styles and techniques. It was very cool to be in a salon that had magazines I actually read and whose stylists knew all of the trends and styles I see online. I’m absolutely looking forward to going back when my budget allows for it!
Thank you so much to everyone at Tsumiki for such a wonderful day and making my hair awesome! Thank you to Clara H for super cute nail art, I can’t wait to show you all the finished proper acrylics she did for me today!!
Bonus shot… CHAIR ENVY POSING! >:D
Double bonus shot, while I was getting my nails done today Taka showed us this video of a day in his life that his wife made from their FB page, it’s so funny! Totally gangster XD
