Decoden Umbrella

by VioletLeBeaux | Jul 23, 2010 | Craft, Decoden-Tutorials, Tutorial

So I promised a tutorial on cutening up a plain old umbrella and here it is, deco umbrella time ^_^

There are so many different things you can do with an umbrella and so I decided to do a few versions of this.

How you can decorate your umbrella will depend on what you’re actually going to use it for. For example if you want it to be a parasol and protect you from just the sun then you can do pretty much anything at all with it… but if you need it to protect you from the rain then you shouldn’t sew anything into the top section of it because the hole you poke with your needle and thread are just going to let water in!!

The key things I want my umbrella to do are keep me dry and fit in my handbag so I didn’t want to add anything too bulky or put any holes in the top. I decided to start off small and just add lace around the edge of the bottom of it.

What you need:

Umbrella
Lace
Needle and thread

What you need to do is open the umbrella up completely. Thread your needle and start sewing lace on.

It’s quite self explanatory really ^_^ When you get to the corners you should pleat the lace so it sits flat then start up the next side. I took this photo after it had been crushed in my bag for a week so you’ll have to use your imagination >_<

Keep going until you reach the end and tie it all off ^_^

Done! This is a way of just adding a little bit of something cute to a plain old umbrella. Nothing will be left un-cute by the time I’m finished ^_^

Though after looking at it for a few months I think it’s still a little plain so I decided to add some more details to it. I haven’t finished yet so you’ll have to wait until next time to see it all completed. I’m going to add small bows to each of the points and deco the bottom of the handle 😀

So I’ll show you it properly finished by the end of next week! Hope you like the deco umbrella ^_^

Melbourne Snappity Snapshots ^_^

by VioletLeBeaux | Jul 22, 2010 | Life

Hello! I am always quite hesitant to post snapshots like this because I’m never sure if it’s really boring for all of you or not XD

I keep taking huge amounts of photos because we’re actually going places and doing fun things so it seems like a shame to just let them sit in a folder somewhere!

These photos go all the way back to Brisbane ^_^

This is the cutest cake in the whole universe… Yay Breadtop! I think I need one of these for my next birthday!

This was all the way back when we had to clean our old townhouse before leaving. See having tall hair really doesn’t prevent me from vacuuming!

We bought one of those family meals from MacDonalds and the box was so comically big so I had to get a snap shot!

Before we moved Jamesreally got into baking, he made us fresh bread all the time 😀 He was very sad when we couldn’t bring his parents breadmaker with us but they brought it down as a surprise last weekend! Woo yummy bread again 😀

Being very silly with a face mask from the Face Shop which I’m totally addicted too. They make you look like a scary Egyptian Mummy though!

And here are the obligatory trying-on-silly-glasses shots 😉

Classy no?

And the lovely Super Kawaii Mama and I indulging in bubble tea. This was my first one in Melbourne but I have to say that Bubble Cup is no where near as good as Easy Way. Yummy!

James is quite the baker, his special is chocolate chip pancakes from scratch!

My current favorite drink! This is soooo sweet and delicious. Very hard to find though so I’m hoarding a bottle in the back of my fridge heehee!

And now a distraction… here’s a cute puppy! It’s kind of weird that I take photos of random puppies in pet stores >_<

Being awesome in my glasses 😉 Deco glasses for the win!

Omg this gigantic snake was outside our window in Brisbane!! Scared the hell out of me!

This was my delicious hot chocolate at our Pancake Manor going away dinner (the first of like 6 going away dinners!).

We’ve been meeting up with so many awesome people! Weekly lunch with the lovely Celesteis always fun. Although the first time, I ordered the spiciest pasta EVER without knowing >_< Totally my luck, I keep ordering spicy food by accident!

Celesteand I! She is just adorable!

I’ve been taking every single chance I possibly can to try out hot chocolates around town too! Haha I should start reviewing them!

Alice and I went to Koko Blackto test out their hot chocolates and other delicious things 😀

Look at these drinks!! They were so yummy 😀

Haha oh no I’m turning into a food blogger XD Mmm food!

I’ve even started to try and cook nicer food at home. This steak is the fanciest thing I’ve ever made 😀

Alice and I made macarons as well. We tried chocolate as well as green tea with redbean filling for a Japanese twist. They didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped because we couldn’t get the temperature in the oven right but still super yummy!

Oh and for those of you that keep asking for photos of me without make up… here’s one 🙂

Alice made a heart shaped one, how cute ^_^

Alice brought me flowers too, all of the friends we’ve made here are so lovely!!

These are some of the other macarons James and I made. They are lemon and… wait for it… BUENO FLAVOR!!! That’s right! I worked out how to make Bueno macarons, thus combining my two favorite things! YUM

These ones were a gift so I put them in a little bag and made a handmade sticker to go on it ^_^

And the other side of the sticker!

I have so many more photos from other fun things and fun meet ups with new friends but I’m quite sleepy so next time ^_^ If anyone’s actually interested maybe I should do this once every few weeks. It’s a novelty for me to have this many interesting outings in such a short period of time!

This weekend it’s the Nuffnang Koko Black meet up too, what have you all got planned? Hope you enjoyed the snapshots!

Making A Cute Shower Cap

by VioletLeBeaux | Jul 21, 2010 | Craft, Other-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

Morning everyone, today I’m making a cute shower cap ^_^

Continuing on in my series of cutening up every day objects today I’m going to show you how I made my shower cap that little bit pinker 😀

To make this particular cute shower cap you need:

Plain shower cap (got mine from Coles for around $2)
Some fabric of your choice
Eyelet lace
Ribbon
Needle and thread

So get out your shower cap and lay out your fabric.

Stretch out your plastic cap to find out how wide it is. You need to cut out a circle of fabric with that diameter plus a few inches for seam allowance.

Now a note on choosing fabric, because this is going to be getting wet often you will need to choose a fabric which dries very easily or else it will get moldy! I am using toweling. This is my circle:

Now thread your needle and with the edge folded under, stitch your fabric into the elastic of the cap. You will need to stretch out the elastic as you sew it in. This can be a bit tricky when you only have two hands so what I do is use a notebook or something solid like that to hold it stretched while I’m sewing.

When you finish you should end up with something like this:

Now this is where you can do one of two things… Either go nuts with the cute and add a frill to the edge here like a vintage styled one or move straight on to the lace. I personally find frills at edge to be cute but not practical because the water catches in them so I went straight to the lace.

Sew one edge of your eyelet lace around the very edge of the elastic.

Then sew on the other side. It should hide all of the edges of the pink in a nice little sandwich.

Lastly thread your ribbon through and tie in a bow. You will need to stretch it out and make sure there is enough ribbon there to go around your head.

You’re done! Ok so there is a limit to how cute you can actually make a shower cap, no matter what they always look pretty silly. But it’s Winter so it’s a very necessary item… and I think this is an improvement on the original ^_^

Hope you enjoyed and let me know if any of you give the cute shower cap a try! ^_^

Lush Marilyn Hair Treatment Review

by VioletLeBeaux | Jul 20, 2010 | Beauty, Review

I’ve been giving the Lush Marilyn hair treatment a try for a while now so I thought I’d share my results.

I love hair treatments, that’s no secret! I’ve been looking around for some new ones to try out but there really isn’t much variety here in Australia. This particular one had come with mixed reviews from a couple of my friends so I figured I would give it a try 😀

Even better, this one is specifically for blonde hair!

The clerk at Lush basically told me that it would lighten the blonde areas of my hair and to avoid applying it on the reds and browns so I would have the same colouring at the bottoms. It is also supposed to put more moisture back into damaged hair. So far my hair has mostly avoided damage from bleaching but I want to preempt any future damage *_*

The idea is that is has all kinds of natural lightening ingredients such chamomile and lemon juice so it should highlight your hair. It won’t give you a proper colour change if you’re not blonde already but it’s supposed to give a kind of boost.

The packaging is quite plain but has lots of deco-ing potential 😉

They thought with my length hair I could get around 3 uses out of this tub, though because I only used it on the top 1/2 of my hair I got 5 applications. At AU$25.95 per pot it’s not particularly cheap because even if you get 5 applications that’s still around $5 a pop.

The consistency is kind of gloopy and slimy! It reminds me of a mango smoothy XD

Like most Lush products I’ve used, the smell is reeeeally intense. I really suggest having a look at the shop and smelling it before you actually buy because once it’s actually on your head it gets very overpowering. If I had been clever and smelt it first I probably wouldn’t have bought it purely on personal preference.

It’s quite a messy job applying it in a fun sort of way! Make sure not to wear nice clothes though because it gets everywhere.

After washing it out my hair felt nice and smooth but to be honest I don’t think it was very much nicer than regular conditioner and by the next day it had pretty much worn off. Long term I didn’t see any noticeable difference in how soft or shiny it was.

I used the whole pot over a few weeks as recommended by the store clerk and I didn’t see any difference in colour at all in my hair. Among my friends who have also used it there was 50/50 split as to whether it actually made any colour difference.

Verdict:

While it made my hair smooth in the short term I didn’t see any long term colour or texture differences. Due to the lack of noticeable difference and the hefty price tag I probably wouldn’t buy it again. That said it was a nice treatment and I think it might work better on a different hair type. TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT. Can any of you girls recommend me a really nice hair treatment to try out? Have you tried the Lush Marilyn Hair Treatment with other results?

Taking Care of Decoden Shoes – Sneaker Sunday

by VioletLeBeaux | Jul 18, 2010 | Craft, Shoe-Tutorials, Tutorial

Morning, it’s Sneaker Sunday again!

So you took the plunge and deco’d your sneakers? Good for you! And you’ve been wearing them for several months and didn’t think anything of taking care of them? Now they are looking quite dirty and a bit yucky huh?

So how do you maintain them?

Well it’s quite easy really 🙂

First thing’s first let’s give them a nice clean! Use paper towel soaked in water and wipe them off.

Dish washing liquid is perfect for removing stubborn dirt.

Now it’s time to remove any jewels or deco that are beyond repair. I used epoxy glue on these jewels and they have cracked, I didn’t know that the area was going to be bending a lot, when you need flexible glue I use PVA.

Clean under there too. The pearls around the edge could easily have been left there if I had cleaned the dirty glue off the top and re-coated them but I wanted to change the pink flower too so I ditched it all and started again.

Gather any replacement supplies and start gluing. Note that I also removed the laces and gave them a really good wash.

I think it is easiest to glue from the outside in. Again I am using PVA glue because it needs to be nice and flexible.

I decided to fill that section with tiny plastic little stars.

So you should glue them down and then paint the glue over the top of them to seal it all in. Do a couple of coats but wait until each one is dry before starting the next.