Lots of things to talk about today so I’ll jump right into it…
Firstly!
On Friday my Gmail account was hacked. The person that did it sent out a spam email to everyone on my lists pretending to be me and trying to get people to sign up to some site and buy a cheap Mac Book Pro. THAT WAS NOT ME. The hacker deleted my last 2 month’s worth of emails and then deleted my entire contacts list so I couldn’t warn anyone that it wasn’t me 🙁
If you received that email please don’t click the link in it. From what I can tell it’s just a phishing scam trying to get you to enter your details into it. However if you did get that email it would probably be a very good idea to run a virus scanning program just in case.
So in light of that and in light of Gmail being completely useless in helping sort it out I am switching to my self hosted account. From now on if you need to contact me please use:
Violet AT violetlebeaux DOT com
I will be disabling the contact form for a couple of days until I can get everything under control again. Thanks for your patience!
Secondly!
It’s been a while since I’ve done a poll to get your ideas and opinions on how the site is progressing so if you would like to give your opinion about what you love/hate I would be really happy if you could fill in the survey here:
Thirdly!
I am thinking it would be really cool to put together some kind a gigantic list ordered by genre of Australian blogs. I know there are lots of lists out there already but most of the ones I’ve seen either aren’t maintained or are not divided into categories/genres. If you have an Australian blog that you would like me to include on my list I would love to hear from you! Just pop your details in this form here:
Fourthly… these are no longer real words but I’m going to keep going with the theme 😉
I want to say thank you so much for everyone that has voted for my car design in the Barina Spark competition!! I couldn’t believe it when I woke up today, my design is currently placed #229th!!! That’s down from being #2500 when I submitted it! Thank you and massive hugs if you voted!
Fifthly…
This one isn’t such a nice one. Over the next week I’m going to be implementing a little reminder for first time visitors to the site but I want to make it perfectly clear that it is NOT ok to steal my images and claim them as your own. It is NOT ok to repost my blog posts without my written permission. It is NOT ok to submit my posts or photos to certain sites that promise things like iPads and LV bags if you post on them often (I want an ipad too ok and seeing as I did the hard work writing the post it’s a pretty crappy thing to do!). It is NOT ok to take a tutorial I’ve made here and use it for your commercial gain. I write these tutorials to encourage people to be more creative, using my hard work for your own financial gain and not even offering me a cut is really sucky! Everything on this website is for NON-COMMERCIAL use only! I swear this is all just basic courtesy but that seems to be in short supply lately >_<
Sixthly…
I don’t normally do this but as a small thank you for being so wonderful to me I thought you might be interested in some of the upcoming posts I’ve been planning ^_^
Photos from the Nuffnang Christmas Party
Photos from the Bobbi Brown counter opening and review of the products
Tutorial- DIY easy cute Christmas cards
Tutorial- DIY shoe clips
Tutorial- 3 things I did with the pink extensions I bought from Bodyline
Tutorial- Prettying up a folding fan for Summer
Photos of all the embroidery I’ve been doing
More Nuffnang competitions
Tutorial- the hair style from the Nuffnang Xmas Party
Review- Amarath Opulent jewellery
Review- Various BB creams
Tutorial- Making sweater clippies
Tutorial- Nail art designs that are cute but work appropriate
If you have any suggestions for the site or would like to suggest a tutorial I would love to hear from you! Either leave me a comment or if you would like to talk privately feel free to email me at the new address 🙂
This lip/cheek tint was in the MBBE gift bags (I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing that by now!)
I really love lip tints, I think they’re the key to having really pretty colour without having to re-apply all the time 😀 This one by Ere Perez is made from Beetroot which I suppose makes sense considering how red my mouth ends up looking after eating anything with beetroot XD
It comes in a handy little roll on container and it is quite an orangey red shade. You can apparently use it either on lips or cheeks though I don’t know if I would suggest this colour of cheeks considering how bright it is.
Here you can see the bottle, an area I’ve just rolled it on and the area above that where I’ve rubbed it into the skin. It kind of looks like a mosquito bite XD
On the website it costs $29.95. I do think it would be more of an investment if you liked the colour because this bottle would last for aaaages even if you used it everyday. To get a lot of colour you really don’t need a lot of the product. I found the smell to be a little odd and it tasted the way it smelled which was icky.
Like most tints I’ve use it was a little drying on the lips so I prefer to use in combination with a gloss or a lip balm under.
One gigantic plus is that the website actually lists *all* of the ingredients so those with allergies or sensitive skin can make sure the products are ok to use.
Here’s the bare lip comparison:
Something about this colour just didn’t speak to me, in person it’s got much more of an orangy tint to is. I like the idea of it but it just didn’t look that great on so maybe I would have liked it more in general with a different shade.
VERDICT: Bright colour which works well for layering, all natural, a little high on the price side. TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT.
I am all kinds of not a car person. Other than getting me from point A to point B via shopping at point C I couldn’t care how many horses were squished into the engine to make it go so fast.
James loves cars. Well not all cars, he loves classic (pre 1974) muscle cars. He used to spend hours telling me all about his 1963 Valiant with a bored out slant 6 engine with triple SU carburetors, racing needles and a torque flight transmission. Unfortunately my mind tends to play this when ever he starts:
That’s why when Nuffnang approached me about doing this post about a new Holden Barina Spark my mind started playing a nice happy version of the “I Dream of Jeannie” song. I feel a little bit bad for Lynda for that phone call because I’m sure there was a long awkward silence as I day dreamed between the word “car” and “design your own” (which is what eventually snapped me out of it) XD
So as I eventually understood, this competition isn’t so much about cars as it is about creativity! I like being creative 😀
The idea behind the new competition that Holden is holding is that you get to personally design your own Barina Spark however you want and then if yours is voted to the top (via Facebook, Twitter etc) you win a Barina Spark!
Now that’s the kind of thing that I can get on board with, I don’t even have my driver’s licence but I want my own VioletMobile! XD
So want to see what I came up with?
I went through a whole lot of design ideas before I finally settled on one. I wanted to incorporate everything I loved and what this blog is all about! I wanted it to leave a trail of sparkles every time it drove somewhere screaming “VIIIIIIIIIIIIOLET” XD But you know, apparently sparkles are not road legal so I settled with it just looking awesome!
I downloaded the Photoshop template and started playing around with it…
This is the design I decided on after much contemplation:
You have to make a cute little wall for your car to be displayed with too so I made this:
The next step was to upload it all to the site! If you don’t want to use Photoshop you can build your design on the site using their tools too.
Next you make the wall thingy and submit it all!
So this is my finished design! I called it the “Wheels of an Ingenue” mwahahahahaha get it??
Stripes, flowers, pearls and my monogram on top… you know so all my rich friends with helicopters will know it’s me XD
Very me right?
If I had a Barina Spark like this I would totally learn to drive mwahahaha XD
So if you enter the competition on www.designerspark.com.au you can win a Barina Spark but you can also win prizes like these just by voting:
Myer vouchers
iPads
Goldwell Hair Products
subscriptions to Harper’s Bazaar and Cleo
Kit Cosmetics Packs
Terry Biviano Vouchers
If you want to vote for me just click my design below to be taken to the page or go make your own! If I win I am so going to have to actually decorate it like this!!
I would love to see how creative you guys get so leave me your url in the comments if you enter so I can go look ^_^
So what do you all think of my big pink frilly Barina Spark? James says that if I win he refuses to drive in it because it’s too un-manly so I’m going to actually have to learn XD
Illustrator. Strong tea, knitting, watercolours, and making a video game called Moonlight in Garland. Living with her adorable husband Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
