Blog - Page 41 of 548 - Violet LeBeaux

Washi Tape TV Make Over – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 24, 2014 | Craft, Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial

So after all of the work I’ve done on our apartment, there are only a few things left that I’m unhappy with. The TV area is definitely one of them. It’s like a back hole of suck.

Before I got to the actually organising and the shelving etc I wanted to do something a bit easier: make over the actual tv.

After:

Before:

Even the tv lights look like a sad face XD

So Daiso here has started stocking fabric and washi tape.

I bought a bunch of rolls so I could play around with things.

The fabric tape looked really happy and bright but it wasn’t cut perfectly straight so the patterns didn’t line up and that really bothered me… because I’m a crazy person like that.

NOT LINED UP!

But it was really easy to do, I just stuck it on.

After that I bought some washi tape. It’s basically patterned Japanese masking tape. I liked the design a lot because it wasn’t too busy from far away but it was transparent so I had to do a layer of masking tape to make it opaque.

The masking tape from Daiso was terrible and kept peeling off but I made it work.

This also didn’t really line up perfectly but it was less obviously so I could forgive it slightly.

I still haven’t decided whether I love it or not. I love the idea and that my TV is no longer so black but I think I haven’t found the perfect way to have this. I might do some more experimentation with other styles of tape but I’m going to wait until the rest of the TV area is perfect and then see what looks best.

The hunt continues though, I will have the perfect light bright apartment if it kills me!

Poor James! Snapshots

by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 22, 2014 | Life

This Snapshots has an abnormally large number of photos of me in it… Maybe this is James’ snapshots? I spend my week staring at the tops of buildings and he is forced to stare at my face haha!

There’s nothing better than lunch at EARL canteen with some Chatime on a sunny day =)

Sleepy puppy!

This does seem accurate!

Look what Cazz found at the market for me!

Cazz and I are so classy together!

I stole her glasses 😀

And at the end of the week, there’s another better than snuggling up with a few pillows and just relaxing!
I hope you’re having a good week!

Watercolour Style Silk Painting Experiments!

by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 19, 2014 | Craft, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial

I’ve been experimenting in finding my own silk painting style lately and while I still haven’t really found it yet it’s been fun so far! Today I’ll show you the techniques I used to make the rose painting below. I was aiming for a finish more like watercolour paints but I still haven’t really got it how I imagine in my head yet!

To begin with I outlined the rose and the leaves etc using clear gutta.

I mixed purple and red for each leaf. I wet the section thoroughly and applied a small amount of red.

I then dripped purple in the inner line of the petal so it mixed with the red.

As it dried I added more water to the centre of each petal so that it moved the ink closer to the edges.

Adding a lot of water was key to this technique.

Each drip moves the paint a little bit so more colour needs to be added in as well.

After each petal dried I repeated again using more paint and more water to layer.

I used the same techniques for the leaves and branches.

The leaves were made with green, yellow and blue.

You need to be careful not to overload the fabric with water otherwise it will drip off the back and take your ink with it!

That’s all of the main parts!

Now the background. I added blue, green and yellow gradually for the whole background. When it began to dry I dripped water in.

More and more colours layered together.

I really loved the colours on the left side background while they were still wet but once they dried it seemed quite dull.

It looked much more bottled green and dark when dry 🙁

For the last steps I heat sealed it and washed out the gutta.

The gradients and the techniques are definitely an improvement but I am still not happy with how the colours are drying. I think I need a few really bright blue based pinks and greens for it to be how I picture it in my head!