Lots of things to talk about today so I’ll jump right into it…
Firstly!
On Friday my Gmail account was hacked. The person that did it sent out a spam email to everyone on my lists pretending to be me and trying to get people to sign up to some site and buy a cheap Mac Book Pro. THAT WAS NOT ME. The hacker deleted my last 2 month’s worth of emails and then deleted my entire contacts list so I couldn’t warn anyone that it wasn’t me 🙁
If you received that email please don’t click the link in it. From what I can tell it’s just a phishing scam trying to get you to enter your details into it. However if you did get that email it would probably be a very good idea to run a virus scanning program just in case.
So in light of that and in light of Gmail being completely useless in helping sort it out I am switching to my self hosted account. From now on if you need to contact me please use:
Violet AT violetlebeaux DOT com
I will be disabling the contact form for a couple of days until I can get everything under control again. Thanks for your patience!
Secondly!
It’s been a while since I’ve done a poll to get your ideas and opinions on how the site is progressing so if you would like to give your opinion about what you love/hate I would be really happy if you could fill in the survey here:
Thirdly!
I am thinking it would be really cool to put together some kind a gigantic list ordered by genre of Australian blogs. I know there are lots of lists out there already but most of the ones I’ve seen either aren’t maintained or are not divided into categories/genres. If you have an Australian blog that you would like me to include on my list I would love to hear from you! Just pop your details in this form here:
Fourthly… these are no longer real words but I’m going to keep going with the theme 😉
I want to say thank you so much for everyone that has voted for my car design in the Barina Spark competition!! I couldn’t believe it when I woke up today, my design is currently placed #229th!!! That’s down from being #2500 when I submitted it! Thank you and massive hugs if you voted!
Fifthly…
This one isn’t such a nice one. Over the next week I’m going to be implementing a little reminder for first time visitors to the site but I want to make it perfectly clear that it is NOT ok to steal my images and claim them as your own. It is NOT ok to repost my blog posts without my written permission. It is NOT ok to submit my posts or photos to certain sites that promise things like iPads and LV bags if you post on them often (I want an ipad too ok and seeing as I did the hard work writing the post it’s a pretty crappy thing to do!). It is NOT ok to take a tutorial I’ve made here and use it for your commercial gain. I write these tutorials to encourage people to be more creative, using my hard work for your own financial gain and not even offering me a cut is really sucky! Everything on this website is for NON-COMMERCIAL use only! I swear this is all just basic courtesy but that seems to be in short supply lately >_<
Sixthly…
I don’t normally do this but as a small thank you for being so wonderful to me I thought you might be interested in some of the upcoming posts I’ve been planning ^_^
Photos from the Nuffnang Christmas Party
Photos from the Bobbi Brown counter opening and review of the products
Tutorial- DIY easy cute Christmas cards
Tutorial- DIY shoe clips
Tutorial- 3 things I did with the pink extensions I bought from Bodyline
Tutorial- Prettying up a folding fan for Summer
Photos of all the embroidery I’ve been doing
More Nuffnang competitions
Tutorial- the hair style from the Nuffnang Xmas Party
Review- Amarath Opulent jewellery
Review- Various BB creams
Tutorial- Making sweater clippies
Tutorial- Nail art designs that are cute but work appropriate
If you have any suggestions for the site or would like to suggest a tutorial I would love to hear from you! Either leave me a comment or if you would like to talk privately feel free to email me at the new address 🙂
Lately lots of people have been asking me questions about blogging so I will now be holding a weekly “Ask Violet” session. If you have a question about blogging you would like to ask me just click here to submit it.
Secondly!
I’ve been a little stressed out with work and a whole lot of other stuff lately so I haven’t been doing as many crafts because I just haven’t had time. This weekend I am going to take both days off to de-stress and craft. Expect a whole lot of tutorials coming from that! One (just to tease you :P) will be about making a cupcake tier thingy out of household objects ^_^
Thirdly!
In the mean time I’m going to show you how I made the last of my felt foodie things from Retro Jet Girl!
The delicious tart thingy 😀
This is another one of the kits ^_^
Obviously again I can’t take any credit for making this tutorial because I was just following their instructions. Full credit goes to the original company but I took photos while I was making it because I thought you might find it interesting anyway ^_^ You can find most of the materials around the house and you can easily substitute anything you like.
This is the most complicated one of those I’ve done so far because there are so many pieces!
So you need:
2 brown triangles with curved edge
1 smaller yellow triangle with curved edge
2 white triangles with curved edge
cardboard triangle with curved edge
2 red semi circles
2 small white semi circles
3 green semi circles
4 white tear shapes
stuffing
thread/scissors/needle etc
Blanket stitch the yellow and white triangles together.
Then sandwich the cardboard between the brown triangles. The hole is there to stick a magnet in but I wanted to keep my options for use open so I left it.
Sit the two pieces you’ve made on top of each other like this:
Stitch them together, once you get to the back you need to hold it at an angle while you stitch. This makes the crust ^_^
Taadaa…
Now let’s make the top bits ^_^
Stack the white tears on top of each other. Running stitch through them all…
Fan them out into a dollop of cream and stitch again!
Now set that to the side and make the strawberries. Stitch some seeds with white thread onto the red semi circles.
Fold in half and blanket stitch up the side.
Flip it inside out and add stuffing.
Stitch the hole closed. Repeat for the other one too ^_^
Kiwi slice time! Stitch the white semi circles onto two of the green ones like this:
Add some little black dots for seeds!
Now stack them and stitch together!
Add them all together and you’re all finished! Good enough to eat yes?
What have you got planned for the weekend? I’m so looking forward to my time off!!
After purchasing with Paypal you will be automatically sent an email with a link and a password for you to download it ^_^
New information about the hardcover versions…
Now a whole lot of you said you were interested in purchasing it as a hardcover edition. I’ve looked into printing on demand via Blurb but as putting it out as a hardcover version involves me having to go through and change a lot of it (eg. changing many many clickable links into a text link reference section etc) I want to gauge the amount of interest in the price first.If I was to print it via Blurb the cost would be AU$55 plus shipping or US$50 plus shipping. Not sure about the difference considering the current exchange rate but this is going off their prices. It’s a decent chunk of money so I completely understand if many of you who expressed interest in the previous post wouldn’t be able to afford it.So I’ve set up a form below where if you think you would be interested in purchasing at that price or if you want one but would prefer it to be cheaper I can look at other options… Just pop in your email and I will keep you in the loop ^_^
Thanks so much for all of your support, I’m very excited about all of this ^_^
I hope those of you that decide to buy really enjoy the book and find it helpful! Do let me know if you have any questions or problems <3
*Edit* I’ve just been informed that the shop currently has layout issues when viewed in Chrome. I am trying to fix this now but in the mean time for best results please use Firefox or if you would like to purchase but can’t manage in your current browser just email me 🙂 */Edit*
So as you all saw in the last Snapshots post I received a hard copy of the blogging ebook I’ve been working on.
Firstly I just want to clear up something, some of you were under the impression that this was the craft and tutorial book I’ve been working on, that is not the case ^_^ This is a basic guide to starting and maintaining your own blog which I have *also* been working on. So I’ve been writing two books (which is why I as being run so ragged!)
Blogging in Style with Violet- 76 pages on how to start and maintain a cute blog. A basic how-to guide for beginners to the world of blogging with lots of cute pictures to help understand new concepts and ideas. Released only as a PDF ebook at this point. Priced at US$8.
The craft/tutorial book which is still in progress and yet to be named. This one will be available in a large hard cover volume and several soft cover versions which comprise of 1 chapter each. It will also be available as a PDF for those who want to read but can’t afford postage of a heavy book. It will be a couple of hundred pages and price is yet to be determined.
But enough about that for now! Let’s talk about this ebook 😀
The last time I mentioned I was writing this, the lovely people from Blurbcontacted me and offered to print me a copy so I could have a physical reminder of all of my hard work.Basically Blurb is a website where you can upload whatever you like and they will print it into a fancy little book for you. They do hard covers and soft cover, pretty much anything you can think of.
I chose the hardcover option with an image wrap. It looks so beautiful and professional!
They make the process very easy so even someone with no design experience can creat something like a book with photos from their holidays and have a really pretty keepsake.
These are the three options they offer for book creation:
1. Bookify (our newest addition to the product range, this is an online bookmaking tool for streamlined book projects that can be done over a night or two) For example a quick travel book from your recent trip or a child’s birthday party.)
2. Booksmart (Blurb’s free software that’s made easy for everyone to download, pick a layout and just add content)
3. PDF To Book (for experienced designers and Indesign software users)
I was in a hurry so I used Booksmart and imported my page layouts. It look me about 15 minutes from opening the program to uploading my images 😀 Of course before that it took weeks of writing, drawing, colouring, editing and organizing the layout of the book XD
The best part:
All in all I am very happy with the quality and service from Blurb and I will be looking them up again if I ever write another ebook so I can have a personal printed copy 😀
If you want to have your own book printed they have been nice enough to include a discount code for you all:
Code: VIOLETSHIP (this is case sensitive)
Good for Aud$9.99 off your shipping charges for books you make
Expires Nov 15, 2010
one per customer, one time use.
Get up to 3 books shipped for free!
Hurray! So there you go 😀 I will let you all know next week once it’s up and available in the shop!
In the mean time, if you want to get a little taste of what it’s about I have made a free low quality preview that you can download, it contains a random selection of 14 pages. Hopefully this will let you get an idea of things and decide if you would like to purchase the full book next week. It’s around 1.9mb big so if you have a download limit please take that into account.
I’ve been progressing with the clean ups and updates to the site. This week I have made the following changes:
Updated the Tutorials page to include all tutorials up until today.
Updated the Snaps page with all new videos. Also updated all of the galleries with about 50+ new photos
Completely overhauled the FAQ page. Now everything is divided into categories with drop down answers for much easier browsing. Removed the search area as no one used it, please use the side bar search now.
Completely overhauled the Links page. Again, now everything is in drop down categories and alphabetical order. I have added a huge amount of links to blogs I’m currently reading. I am hoping to update this every few months now.
Please note that the shop is currently undergoing maintenance to make browsing easier so it will be out of commission probably until next week.
Minor updates were made to the About and Sponsors pages.
A new form was installed on the Contact page as the old one was accepting messages but not delivering them to me >_<
Back end changes were also made to reduce general load times of the site.
So what’s coming next? Over the next week I will be making these changes:
New updated banner image to match the new background.
Shop updates to make browsing easier, new checkout system and new items added.
New drop down system for posts.This one is probably the most important one as it will effect browsing. Basically what I am planning to do to all of my posts is create a drop down effect so everything loads much quicker for those who don’t have as fast internet. This will also mean that you will be able to view more posts on the front page of the site. It will not be like traditional blog excerpts as you won’t need to click to a separate page to read the full post. When you click the link, the rest of the post will drop down below it. Hopefully this makes it less annoying and quicker to load!This will be the same on the permalink pages of posts as well so that if you have read the post on the main page (as according to my stats, most people do) and then click to leave a comment you now won’t have to scroll down through the whole thing again. Each post will have a teaser image before the drop down so you can get an idea of what the post is about and if you want to read it.
Here is an example of what the typical post will look like soon ^_^
I have been playing around with my monogram a whole lot lately. I drew it a couple of months ago but never really put it on anything.
I decided to try to use it a bit more because I really like it so I made a wallpaper for my laptop. Haha now I can stare at myself all day woohoo self involvement! XD
And so there you go. This is an example of a drop down post! If you don’t want to see the post anymore, you can click the drop down button again and it will collapse. Nice and Simple!
I hope you enjoy the updates and it makes things easier for everyone to use. Please let me know if you have any questions, suggestions or concerns ^_^
Illustrator. Strong tea, knitting, watercolours, and making a video game called Moonlight in Garland. Living with her adorable husband Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
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