Sorry for the lack of updates guys I have been a little stressed lately and with stress I tend to get sicker and have less energy so I haven’t had as much time for blogging as I would like.

So today I thought I’d share some shopping I did recently! A few people have asked me to write my guide to shopping so this is a little bit of a preview!

A while ago we did our shop at Chermside which is a large center on the Northside and I got a few little presents

T2 is the most delightful tea shop. I could spend hours just smelling their shop. I bought the loveliest Strawberries and Cream green tea and Sleepy Good which is a tisane for relaxing that really helps me sleep at night.

My favorite purchase that day was actually a cashmere cardigan from Peter Alexander which was on sale (yay!). I am a huge advocate of creating outfits which look like a million dollars for much less but sometimes it’s nice to go for that big brand item. The girl who helped me was lovely and wrapped everything up in cute printed tissue paper.

I wish more stores would use beautiful sturdy paper bags like this! The little bow on the dog’s collar is actually a ribbon too!

And here is the cardigan! I think this is a very French co-ordinate inspired by the over romanticized version of France in my head. Ah yes of course everyone owns a poodle, has a view of the Eiffel Tower and rides a cute little bike everywhere, though I imagine that carrying a baguette all the time could get annoying

Oui oui un baguette sil vous plait! J’ai une trousse d’écolier rouge. Le singe est sur la table.

I bet there would be an awful lot less war if countries were more like the stereotypes in my mind. Also there would be less irritating people in the world asking me if I ride a Kangaroo to work.

This was my outfit for dinner the other night. I hadn’t tried doing the bow hair style for a while but it works muuuch better now my hair has grown a bit. My bow is giant!

Outfit details:
Skirt- Hand made
Top- $2 pink tank top from an opshop
Cardigan- Free from my mum
Jewelery- Random stuff from Diva/Annie K
Stocking- Myer
Shoes- Modified from Payless or somewhere

I think that my favorite thing about this outfit is that it’s cute but still really casual. I actually didn’t feel over dressed for once at dinner but still got compliments!

Also thank you all for your lovely comments on my/James’ Nuffnang entries, comments like that make me really love blogging <3

Morning everyone! As promised here is my tutorial of how to do the bow hair style like this:

Firstly apologies that the photos are a little bit dark, I didn’t have time to do this during the day and work has been crazy busy so I don’t have time to edit all 50 photos right now *_*

Now let’s get started! Firstly you will need to wash and brush your hair, this style works best with clean hair. If you need to blow dry it straight do that too.

Wow my hair is getting long!

Ok now you are going to need the following:
-LOTS of bobby pins
-2 Hair ties, preferably ones that match your hair. So you can see them I’m using bright pink and white this time.
-A good hair brush
-Strong hold hair spray, especially if you have unruly hair like me.

- Lastly a hair dryer if you want to set your fringe. If you feel the need take time to do some Charlie’s Angels style poses now to get it out of your system.

Okidokie. Now you’ve got nice clean dry hair, separate your fringe and clip it out of the way.

Now pull the rest of your hair back into a pony tail. It needs to be really high up on the top of your head. Think, popular school girls in the 80′s high.

I find it’s easiest to turn upside down. Secure it tightly with a hair tie.

Once you’re right way up you should grab the sides of the pony tail and put it until it’s tight.

At this point you’re probably feeling pretty stylish but soldier on!

Un-clip your fringe and take a section from the front of the pony tail. This is going to be the middle bit of the bow so make it appropriately sized for your hair.

I like to give it a bit of a pull so the ponytail moves forward a bit. From the side it should look like this:

Now clip it aside into your fringe so we can make the bow part. You’ll be feeling even more like an 80′s pop starlet now so take a few seconds to have a dance.

Now you should grab the remaining ponytail and brush any knots out of it.

Get your second hair tie and tie it as far down the ponytail as you can without having lots of fly aways. Now this part is a little tricky, when you do the last pass over of the hair tie, don’t pull the ends through completely, just leave them half way.

It creates a nice little neat bubble on the end…

And from the side you can see how it curls the ends under on the back.

Now what you want to do is fold it in half. Make sure to have some bobby pins ready so once you’ve got it in position you can pin it straight away.

You want it to look kind of like a fan.

Pin it very securely in place. From the back it should look something like this:

And from the front like this:

Give it a good dose of hair spray and lets move on to the next step before you run off and try to audition for an extra role in a Dr Suess movie!

This is the point where it starts to actually look like a bow… Seperate the folded hair into two equal sections with your fingers.

Squish the middle apart with your fingers and give it another quick spray.

Unclip the section that was attached to your fringe.

Next brush it smooth so there are no bumps and knots. Get a bobby pin (or two) and while holding it flat on your head, push the pins straight across in front of the hair tie. What this is doing is attaching the hair in my hand to my head so when I pull it up and back in a second you won’t be able to see the hair tie.

In the photo below I put the pins about 3 inches from my hand towards the bow.

Next pull the hair up… see no hair tie!
Pull it backwards so it forms the middle of the bow.

Make sure it covers the second (pink) hair tie now and pin it in place. It should be pulled fairly tight so it doesn’t look like just another loop!

Ok so we’re alost done, we just have to get rid of that scragly bit on the back. How you do this depends on how long your hair is.

If you have long/thick hair you should split it into two parts and repeat the following steps on each side, if not just do what I do!

Take the last piece of hair and tease it a little. Nothing too dramatic, just enough to give it some body.

It should look roughly like this:

Now take that section and twist it a little bit.

This bit is a little tricky, to show in pictures… you want to fold the section in half so it’s a little smaller than the sides of the bow. Pick a side of the bow which has drooped a bit, I chose the left side. Now you basically take the section and shove it into the middle of the side of the bow you chose. To do this you kind of lift up the half of the bow and stick it in the hole in the middle… Make sense?

Pin it so it’s secure and so that nothing is sticking out of the bow half.

Next fiddle with the sides until you’re happy with how they’re sitting.
And give it a last spray.
The back is still kind of ugly so I like to cover it with a real bow. There’s nothing a good bow can’t hide
Pick out something appropriate..

Pin it in place…
If you need to, use the hair dryer to set your fringe in place…

And TAA DAAA! You’re all finished Good work!

Very cute! Make sure to spend some time cam-whoring your new hair style ^_^

Hope you enjoyed this, if you have any questions just ask…

Or if you are completely confused here is an awesome video which uses a similar technique to mine:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYn23fg-bO4]

Let me know what you guys think!

Btw, I will answer all my emails tonight, sorry for being late guys!

Aceo Friday again, my how time flies doesn’t it? This week I’ve got a silly little caricature of Marilyn Monroe, this is what happens when I have no real time for art.

This weekend I’m going to do a tutorial on how to do the bow hair so look out for that on Monday.

I don’t think there’s anything better than a good cup of tea on a cold day. I’ve just gotten some new lose leaf varieties and so I’m obsessed at the moment. Mmmmm. what are your favorite teas?

Anyway here is the third contender in my Casual Hairstyle Poll…

2 plaits! Very easy to do, stays in nicely but has lots of fly aways by the end of the day. This style is good because I can customize it depending on my mood with an alice bow or bows on each end, my only worry is that it’s *too* plain…

Thoughts?

Well back to work!

Currently this is my faaavorite outfit! Most of that has to do with the fact that it includes my awesome shoes! They were on sale, so I bought them and added flowers to make them Hime style. Much cuter!

I also found opaque stockings on sale a Myer for $7.50! And they are *actually* opaque.

James also surprised me with this belated “Un-Birthday” cake. He made it himself, how cute is it? Btw yes my real name is Nikki but I’ve been Violet online so long now that I prefer it!

Loooove it! It was so sweet and yummy, we could only eat a tiny bit because it was so rich.

This is just a quick snapshot, see I’m not glamorous all the time
It’s getting cold here in Aus so at home it’s comfy pj’s and jumpers all the way!

Ah I have the best boyfriend ever

So as most of you are aware I have been very lazy about editing my holiday photos! No more laziness!

Of course we have to have the obligatory landscape shot to show how pretty it was:

To be honest I’m not to big on birthdays… I mean wow I managed to not die for a whole year? Go me! I would much rather be celebrated for my achievements than my ability to not die

Look at my new pill box hat! I love it, James bought it as part of my present

Long way down! I was fairly casual on this holiday, more of a retro look than hime or princess. Fun style though!
I love over the top clothing but when you only have limited suitcase space it’s hard to pack more than one outfit!

We did *SO* much shopping. I had a blast.

See all this shopping?! Poor James took it upon himself to carry all my bags all day! What a gentleman! Ok this was slightly staged but that’s pretty much what it was like all day!

James’ Mum got me a Sally Hansen gift pack full of cool nail polishes and treatments, how nice!

One more landscape
Well I had a great time. Did you guys do anything fun this week?

Oh also I can’t remember if I already mentioned this but the second article I wrote on “Choosing a Logo” is up on WomenWiseMarketing. If you want to come read just clicky here.

James’ parents have an awesome garden! I still haven’t gotten a chance to edit my birthday photos so I thought I’d put these ones up while you’re awaiting. Blue Crane Design has been really busy so I won’t be online as much this week, or at least not online doing fun things

Very Monroe right? Damn wind always comes at the exact wrong time! Typical James feels the need to take a photo of it. This is a nice casual outfit. I’ve been doing so many crazy Hime outfits lately but sometimes I’m just too tired or don’t have time so this is what I revert to.

I don’t know why I like this one. It’s exposed very badly and looks horribly grainy. Kind of 50′s though.

Cam-whoring
How awesome would this garden be for having a tea party? I want to go to more tea parties! With tea and crumpets and cucumber sandwiches. Needs MOAR sandwiches!

Such a long driveway! Who wants to have to take the bin out on Monday night all the way down the bloody drive way! Stinky bin germs everywhere!

Sorry guys this is a pretty boring post today, I’ve got lots of ideas for new interesting posts I just need to have some time to sit down and do something about it!

Just a casual outfit post today. This is basically what I wear when we meet clients or if I have to tone things down for any reason.

Basically it’s just my plain shoes, a dress and a cardigan to make it more conservative. I really like my hair like this though.

It’s good on a hot day!

James took this photo of me while I was struggling to get everything out of the car the other day *_*

At least my outfit looks good! Man I love that dress! This has been the style of my casual look lately, it’s got a veeeeery casual hime look about it but nothing too much. I prefer to do my hair up high!

James thinks it looks like a candid celebrity shot