2009 - Page 22 of 33 - Violet LeBeaux

Strapya World Review (and feature news)

by VioletLeBeaux | May 6, 2009 | Decoden, Hair, Hime Gyaru, Review

Japanese export site Strapya World Review.

Hello everyone and welcome to my first shop review! Be warned this is a big post with LOTS of pictures. I thought long and hard about which shop to review first but all the online spending that my K-Rudd Stimulus Money let me do gave me an idea! Everyone is always asking where I get my deco supplies from so here is a review on…

Strapya World!

Now a little background info:

Shop- Strapya-World Url- https://www.strapya-world.com/index.html Location- Japan

Products- Decoden supplies, little fake foods, cell phone straps, Disney and Hello Kitty accessories, random Japanese kitschy junk.

Prices- Well it’s a bit hard to compare as it depends on the exchange rate. Prices are in Japanese Yen. You’re paying more than you’d actually pay in Japan but most of the prices are still quite reasonable as long as your exchange rate doesn’t suck as hard as the Australian Dollar.

Service- I have ordered with Strapya a couple of times and each time the service has been quite good. Items are shipped promptly and the only time I’ve had to email the response was quick and solved my problems. Note though that English is their second language so expect to have to be a little creative with reading any replies :)Shipping- Either surface mail or EMS, I always choose EMS for overseas packages because I don’t trust Australia Post. Also the EMS guy knows to ring my door bell rather than just leaving a note to go pick the package up. For some reason AusPost can’t grasp this fact. Shipping is very quick!Now some photos and more info!

I placed my order on the 25th of April and it arrived at my door on the 1st of May, this included a weekend so it wasn’t posted until the 27th… effectively it took 3 working days to get here.

This is what I ordered, everything arrived bubble wrapped for protection. Mostly deco supplies with one big thing… A PEARL IN A CAN! (click to be taken to the Strapya listing)

So when I read about this I thought it sounded hilarious! As you all know… I LOVE pearls so how could I pass up the chance to get my own pearl out of a real oyster in a can?! So terribly Japanese it’s awesome.

Here is my adventure with Pearl In A Can..

It comes in a cute little box with some cute Engrish on it. There are 5 colours of pearl that you can get inside and each has a different meaning, more on that later. Things get a bit messy so I would suggest you get a tray or do this over a sink! Inside the box you’ll find the can with the oyster, instructions, a little tool to open the oyster and the necklace in a little blue heart display.

Make sure you read the label… apparently you shouldn’t eat the oyster… I don’t know who would be dumb enough to eat an oyster floating in some kind of alcohol which has been un-refrigerated for several days in the sun… but someone obviously was because there are a LOT of warnings XD

Now make sure to read the instructions and get out this little tool thing.

This is the oyster. If you think it looks gross, you should wait for the smell…

Open up your can with the ring pull and try not to breathe in the over-powering vinegar/alcohol smell.

Heehee it looks silly!

Now pull it out and grab your tool (hahaha)! Wedge it into the oyster and open him up!

Look I found a pearl!!

Make sure to give it a wash and discard the oyster and can!

How cute is that?

Which colour did you get? I got Cream which apparently means success! Go me! Bring on my success! The other colours you can get are: White- Intelligence Cream- Success Pink- Health Purple- Property Black- Love

Now we’ve got the pearl you should get the little cage necklace!

Open it up and pop in the pearl!

Put it back on the necklace and there you go!

How cute is that? I think it’s a great little novelty, especially since it’s currently on sale 90% off for US$9.75. Because it comes in such a nice package it would make a really nice gift.

Of course now you’ve spent all this time making your necklace you should spend some time checking yourself out 😀 Fantastic!

Final thoughts: Strapya- Though it’s not the cheapest, the items are cute, the quality is good and there is lots to choose from. I would recommend it! Pearl in a can- Fun to play with, a good gift and a damn cute necklace in the end!

Now my 2 questions for you guys… 1. Did you like this review? Does it need more/less humor? Would you read more of these? 2. What do you think of my new hair extensions??

As an after thought to all of this, I’ve been featured on Pink Expertise! Wow it seems like I’ve gotten a lot of features lately, it’s been really lovely! Thank you all for reading my blog, you guys are so awesome!

If you want to check out the feature just click the link below 🙂 http://thelifebehindthecoach.typepad.com/pink_expertise/2009 /05/inability-to-give-up.html

Seaside trip.

by VioletLeBeaux | May 4, 2009 | Hime Gyaru, Life

The best seaside trips are close to home.

On the weekend James and I went on a seaside trip… like 2 blocks away from our house at the foreshore. Lots of photos ensue!

RAWR! I AM BEACH GIRL WHO LIVES ON MUD FLATS! RAWR!

Digging tissues out of my bag because my nose was running like a tap. Lovely right? I’m a classy girl.

Look at that blue sky! It was such a lovely day, I wish beautiful weather like this happened inside our house too XD

The tide was out and it was so gross! There were little crabs everywhere and I just wanted to poke them but I didn’t want to get dirty.

My good little photographer was busy snapping away all day!

How graceful am I? Super graceful is the answer. Walking over sand in heels is hard *_*

So I’m still debating the whole side-swept fringe thing, what do you guys think? Y/N?

And there you go, the happy couple at the seaside with an endless sky behind them 😀

The end!

ACEO Friday!

by VioletLeBeaux | May 1, 2009 | Art

And today’s ACEO Friday is all Alice-y again.

Yet another in my Alice in Wonderland series. This one is the Queen of Hearts. Every story needs a good villain, I was deathly scared of her when I was a child. I think I’ll alternate the Alice series and some orange and yellow ones I’ve been working on. Thoughts?

*edit* I just got my first article about Graphic Design published over at Womenwise Marketing. Click the link to go take a look. I’m going to be a featured author there with a new article to help women with Graphic Design every month! Exciting!

http://www.onewomanmarketing.com/choosing-a-logo

This one has been sold but feel free to click the picture to be taken to the etsy ACEO sale page 🙂

James and Violet's Holiday Adventure!

by VioletLeBeaux | Apr 30, 2009 | Beauty, Hair, Life, Nails

Our working holiday on the Sunshine Coast.

Welcome to my holiday extravaganza! Well as some of you know I was away for a week, this is pretty much what I did… Beware… there are a lot of photos and this is the cut down version!!

We have quite a few clients up on the Sunshine Coast so James surprised me with a working holiday! Much hilarity ensued. Also, don’t expect Hime/Lolita here it doesn’t really work so well on the beach!

So here we are at the half way truck stop thing, we were eating lunch when James pulled out his camera to take a photo of his burger and the one of me above. Then the two guys approached us and started chatting to James about what a great hobby it was. They were also photographers and complimented me on my hair saying that they loved the 60’s and we chatted for a while. It ended turning into a mini-photo shoot! Everyone in the truck stop was staring, it was hilarious!

Above is the first photo they took. They gave James lots of tips on photography!

This is the guys taking more photos haha, so hilarious! They were so nice!

This is the view from our hotel room! How pretty is it? James got HEAPS of really pretty scenic photos but I’m only going to post a few. If you want to see the rest I’m sure they’ll probably turn up on his blog here…

James got up very early every morning to run along the beach. What a nut job! It was much nicer rugged up in bed. I decided to spy on him through the balcony though!

We got our Kevin Rudd bonuses which was awesome timing! Look at all this shopping! How cute is that singlet?

New nail polish! I went a bit crazy with the colours this time XD I LOVE all of them, you can’t really see but the silver on the right is full of glitter, so much so that it’s almost like painting with sand. They are all really nice, and quite cheap.

I had the WORST experience with a nail salon up there though. I’m not going to write the story right now because I’m still mad but if you’re interested ask and I’ll tell. Let’s just say now I know why I do acrylics myself.

This is what they all look like, cute huh? Ignore the ugly natural nails.

My lovely man relaxing on the balcony.

New Deco supplies~~ I got all those fake flowers for $8! I’ve got some awesome things planned for them so just you wait for the upcoming tutorials.

I love sail boats, there is something just beautifully postcard about them.

We ventured down to the rock pools in front of the hotel a couple of times and it was beautiful. More on that later.

The beach at night etc A crazy old beach fossiker. He was down at the beach every morning at like 5am looking for lost change and other beach junk.

I FINALLY MANAGED TO CURL MY HAIR! Oh my god it took forever but LOOK I did it! I also bought some long curly hair extensions… woo! I haven’t taken photos of that yet but they rock for Hime Style.

Most of the stuff here was from our day Op shopping, the Sunshine Coast has the best Op shops in the universe! Seriously, not including the stripy swimsuit and James’ 2 shirts at the back everything cost around $30 total… EVERYTHING.

Wearing my new Op shop finds. Shirt- $4, Skirt- $4, Hair Scarf- $0.20, Being Thrifty- Priceless. Ok that was tacky but how awesome is that?! The shirt and skirt were both completely new with tags too 😀

Priceline (one of the best make up/beauty shops ever) was having a deal where if you spent $50 on certain brands you got a make up bag full of things worth $80. It was a freaking awesome deal! So this is a combination of what you bought and what was in the bag (which is super cute). The things in the bag were real full sized things too not just shitty samples!

We had breakfast at the cutest little cafe and there were bush turkey walking everywhere! It was so weird seeing turkey walking around in suburbia and fighting for scraps, wtf?

Our delicious breakfast. Seriously the yummiest breakfast I’ve ever had.

Here are some shots from down at the beach. I’m generally not the biggest fan of the beach because of all the icky sand and sea creatures which can sting you but we had so much fun! Here I am controlling the waves! BOW TO ME OCEAN!

Ah! It didn’t work! Run away!

Look at him oozing Calvin Klein model XD

And after a hard day’s work we can down to the pool to relax XD

And my wonderful man makes me a cup of tea.

Best semi-vacation ever.

Hope you enjoyed the photos as much as I enjoyed being in them XD

Geisha Art Post

by VioletLeBeaux | Apr 29, 2009 | Art

Today’s art is Geisha themed.

I’ve been doing canvases for Blue Crane Design which I just love! Oil painting is fun but can also be quite challenging. I am only a novice at oils so I enjoy the learning process.

The flash kind of killed this pic, it looks lots better in person. The reds are really vibrant.

So shall I post more art? I think I’m done with painting geisha but not sure what I should do next.