by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 3, 2013 | Outfit Of The Day, Violet Vision Videos
Due to some technical issues with the photos, I’ve had to delay the Home Sweet Home reveals for a day but look forward to the first post about the living room tomorrow!
This is most likely the last Round Up post for quite a while as I move things around and change my posting schedule but it’s a good one D
It’s been a little slow video-wise what with the holidays but in the mean time before I’m back at it properly I hope you guys enjoy this Tartan OOTD and the last of the December vlogs!
Strawberry Picking kinda! Day 23
The day before Billy Idol Day Eve! Day 24
Billy Idol Day Eve! Day 25
Happy Billy Idol Day! Day 26
Boxing Day Sales! Day 27
Korean Dinner Date! Day 28
Lottie’s New Years Resolutions! Day 29
Queen Victoria Markets! Day 30
24 Hours on the couch! Day 31
Get Ready With Me For NYE! Day 32
The End? Day 33
Hope you all had a good weekend! ^_^
by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 2, 2013 | Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Life, Tutorial
So almost a year ago I started The Home Sweet Home Project. It was my aim to stop procrastinating about decorating my house and actually do it. We rent and because of that I had a tendency to not bother with decorations or actually making places feel like home as I didn’t know where we would be in 6 months or a year. It didn’t seem like a good mentality and almost a year later I can say that I’ve made a lot of really positive changes both in our home and the way that I look at things.
The day we moved in, I was so excited:
You can read the full original Home Sweet Home post over here but I’m going to go through my original goals and show the progress I’ve made.
The first meal we ever had in the apartment, James got Subway and I had Okonomiyaki. Note the lack of furniture and the cardboard boxes next James which will soon be turned into furniture XD
So what was I trying to get out of this project and do I think I’ve completed it?
- To make every part of the house pretty without losing functionality.
With our budget and time allowance, we’ve done amazingly well. There are still areas which need improvements but I am really proud of the progress we’ve made so far! The house looks like a completely different place. When we moved in, I had to make our furniture out of cardboard. How times have changed!
Me putting together my cardboard furniture right after moving in. Having to cut up all of those heavy boxes really cut up my hands too:
- To spend as little money as possible.
We stuck to our budget because we bought as we found things cheaply and made most of the big things from scratch. The biggest purchase we made was a new couch for the lounge room and that was actually a gift from my Mum so I was very lucky in that area!
- Regain my creativity and problem solving skills.
I feel invigorated. I lost my inspiration in some areas (mostly drawing) but I found it in others. I think that’s just the nature of inspiration though isn’t it? If we were inspired all the time it wouldn’t feel as awesome coming up with something new!
- Replace all ugly things.
We’ve made some real progress on this. Most of the things which now need replacing are in the kitchen and as I have no intention of wasting things I’ll be replacing them as they wear out.
- Practice decorating for our real home.
No matter where our first “real” home ends up being I know that the lessons I’ve learned here will allow me to decorate it with ease! I’m absolutely looking forward to moving there too and hopefully it will be this year!
- Stop procrastinating!
I’m not completely sure I managed this one >_> I mean I’ve stopped several times while writing this post to watch Poirot over the top of my laptop… but I have gotten a lot of things done! I have worked very hard this year at making our house nice. I guess a little procrastination isn’t really a bad thing as it gives time to relax when you haven’t scheduled it. I tend to schedule everything so perhaps embracing procrastination (to a point) as my brain’s way of saying “Enough is enough!” is the right thing to do at the moment.
- Surround ourselves with beauty .
I think I’ve checked this off very well!
- Stop waiting and start DOING!
Well and truly DONE!
So overall I think I’ve made a pretty damn good go of this project and while I know it’s never going to be completely finished I can be comfortable at calling this finished 😀
For the next week I’ll be posting one room per day with before/afters and everything that’s happened in between. I hope you enjoy them!
by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 1, 2013 | Life, Notices
Holy bajeebus it’s 2013 *_*
When did this happen?? It feels like 2012 was barely a year at all! Even if it didn’t feel very long, 2012 was a really great year for me. There were some pretty terrible parts but I think we had a lot more good than the bad and that’s what counts. This last year will always be remembered as the year we brought Lottie home with us and I don’t think there’s anything better than that!
You’ve probably noticed that there have been a couple of changes here, mostly in the layout. Well really this is just the start of things that I have planned for 2013. I have a really fantastic feeling about this year, I think some massive things are going to happen.
I don’t generally do resolutions as such but there are some things I want from the year and some more changes I’d like to make.
I’d like to start enjoying life more as I’m living it rather than just looking back and thinking how awesome it was later. I’d like to stress less about things. I’d like to try to do one fun thing a day and not live behind my computer screen 100% of the time! I’d like to explore the city I live in and do some traveling.
To put it into an actual list so I feel more accountable for crossing them off, I’d like to:
- Take Lottie to a beach because her reaction would be adorable.
- Paint and draw more because it’s fun not because I have to.
- Do things in general because they’re fun not because I have to.
- Start learning languages again.
- Go strawberry picking at a place which actually has strawberries!
- Spend more quality time with James when we aren’t working.
- Bake more cakes!
- Find a way to get the Bergamot plushies into production even if it’s just locally.
- Continue adding to my Home Sweet Home.
- Move to a different, hopefully bigger apartment.
- Enjoy as much of 2013 as I can without stressing about what’s going to happen later! I want to take evenings and weekends off, I want to learn to work smarter not harder and I want to enjoy life more!
I think those changes will eventually effect you guys here too because while this blog is about crafting and beauty it’s also about my life. My personal tastes and obsessions reflect here, I mean I don’t think I need to remind people when we had almost of month of pompom crafts because I was obsessed! So I guess that this post is just a beginning, it’s the foreword to the next year’s worth of posts, it’s a heads up to change and it’s extremely exciting!
So what can you guys expect this year from me?
- Tutorials! There are lots of new ideas and techniques I want to try out this year and I will be sharing them here as always.
- Videos! Videos are one of my favorite things to make at the moment so I want to incorporate them more here. The format of the videos is going to change a bit this year, rather than having round up posts like we’ve always had, vlogs will being going into the Snapshots posts and tutorials will have their own posts each. This means there will be 2 video posts during the week now instead of one. I think this format will allow me to write more about the videos, keep the tutorials section much more organised and add extra details to the posts including photos, tips and Q&As.
- Hair! This is something I’ve been listening to a lot of feedback about. I understand that it’s not always easy to follow video tutorials for hairstyles so I’ll be redoing some of my old video tutorials as photos and coming up with more new photo tutorials for hairstyles.
- Quality! I think sometimes I get really bogged down into the idea of *having* to post a certain number of things. I always want to do 7 posts a week, 2 video tutorials, vlogs, cuties posts etc plus all of the social media. With that mindset there have been times I’ve found myself last minute trying to put something together and it not being the quality I expect from myself. This year I’m focusing on quality more, I want to take amazing photos and video. I want to put the amount of time that I used to be able to put into writing posts back when I only did 3 a week.
- A little of everything! Like I mentioned earlier, this blog has always been inspired by the things I’m feeling and doing at the time. I have a short attention span and I like to try new things so you can bet that something new and exciting is going to take my fancy this year. Whatever it is, I can’t wait to share it all with you guys 😀
So this all starts today, the new layout is inspiring me to do things. I feel like crossing things off my to do lists. I feel like busting out my watercolours. I feel like settling down with some homemade jam with brie on toast, a cup of tea and crafting!
I’m going to kick the year off tomorrow by showing you guys my completed Home Sweet Home. That’s something I’ve been working on all year and it’s nice that it’s finally come together. I feel inspired living here now and I know I can take the things that I learnt to the next house and beyond.
Anyway, total props if you managed to get through that gigantic wall of text!
tl;dr? This last year rocked but this coming year is going to be even better!
