Craft Archives - Page 26 of 77 - Violet LeBeaux

A New Method For How To Make Glitter Sneakers

by VioletLeBeaux | Dec 8, 2012 | Craft, Shoe-Tutorials, Tutorial

Today’s project is a new version of my old post about glitter sneakers. Even though I haven’t done a Sneaker Sunday post in aaages I still love them and I still love customising my own!

This is my latest pair of glitter sneakers. You can see the old technique of painting the glitter sneakers in this post.

You need:

Glitter
Fabric glue (not pva like the last tutorial)
Paper to put down so you don’t make a huge mess
Sneakers

So rather than buying new sneakers I decided to redo my old deco sneakers. I did these 3-4 years ago and while they are not in terrible condition they are a little worse for wear.

There’s a post on how to maintain sneakers and shoes which are decorated in case you’re interested too.

Anyway the first step was removing all of the deco pieces and bows and giving the shoes a thorough wipe down.

The key to this version is to use wash and wear fabric glue. The brand doesn’t matter but it need to be washable. In the old version I used pva glue and mixed the glue and glitter together. That way does make a smaller mess but it takes longer and because the glitter is fairly encased it’s not quite as shiny.

Put sheets of paper down so you can easily clean up the mess later. So section by section coat each side of the shoe in a generous amount of glue. Then while the glue is still wet slowly tip glitter on. Be generous and don’t worry if the glitter piles up.

After the glue is dry to the touch shake off the extra glitter. Leave the shoes to dry over night and then brush off any remaining loose glitter OUTSIDE. You want to be very thorough with this brushing and make sure every possible piece of loose glitter is gone or else you’ll leave a trail of glitter everywhere you walk. I took mine into the shower and banged them together until nothing else came off.

And that’s it! Because this is fabric glue it holds on to the glitter so well that no top coat is needed at all. Super shiny = winner!

Now you just need some shiny clothes to go with them!

How To Make A Craft Box From A Yoga Mat – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Dec 6, 2012 | Craft, Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Storage/Utility-Tutorials, Tutorial

This is a really quick way to knock together some craft storage from an old yoga mat.

Old Yoga mat or foam
Needle and yarn or stapler
Scissors

I wanted to use the basket I keep my lace in for the tv area to hold cables. Good idea but what would I replace it with? I didn’t have any other things to use so I decided to make one.

First cut a rectangle of foam which is as wide as the bottom of the box plus both sides. You can see I had a helper 😉

Put the basket in the middle of the foam and trace lightly around it 2cm from the base with the scissors so it scores the foam.

In each corner cut out a square which meets the corner of the score you made.

Snip the inner corner 2cm.

Repeat on each side and you’ll have something like this:

When you fold the edges together they should match up like this:

Stitch each side together. I used yarn and a basic whip stitch. You could staple it if you’re in a hurry but this does look a bit nicer.

Done, easy!

And all full of stuff. Apparently this was really hard work so my helper decided to have a nap ^_^

With one yoga matt you could easily make a bunch of these and have a matching storage system.

How Bleach An Ombre Gradient Effect Into A Shirt

by VioletLeBeaux | Dec 4, 2012 | Clothing-Tutorials, Craft, Tutorial

I’ve been experimenting with bleaching clothing recently. I’d never really considered it until James suggested it for changing the colour of some fabric scraps I couldn’t think of a use for. I ended up playing around and getting some very cool results including this gradient shirt!

Around $1.20 for a huge bottle means it’s a very cheap way to give clothes and other fabric items a make over.

I experimented on a lot of different items with varied results so let’s see the before/afters before I show you the very cool gradient bleach.

First an old cardigan in a colour which didn’t go with my wardrobe.

After soaking in the bleach and water solution for around 20 minutes the only part which changed colour was the cotton lace. Everything else was apparently synthetic so it didn’t take the bleach. Bleach works best with natural fibers.

After:

Not the cute cream/white cardigan I was hoping for but still cuter than it started.

This shirt was accidentally dyed blue in the wash with some jeans. I really loved it but the blue looked really odd with the pinks of the flowers.

After:

The blue came out completely and I left it in the bleach long enough that the flowers became lighter and more pastel. Definitely like this one!

I threw in one of James’ old shirts to see if it was salvageable.

It became a bit brighter but there was not a super noticable change.

I threw in another few dresses at the end which were also blue from those jeans and they turned out like new.

Now let’s get a bit more fancy!

This shirt was in my “donate” pile and I decided to experiment on it.

I set up a hanging rack so I could suspend the shirt over the bucket of bleach.

Then I lowered it so the bottom was sitting in the bleach solution.

After a while the solution started creeping up the shirt.

To speed the process up I poured boiling water over the shirt to draw the bleach up further.

Then it was just a matter of waiting until it was the colour I wanted.

Getting there…

You can see the gradual change of colour more clearly here:

Once that was all finished I threw everything in the wash to remove any extra bleach and get rid of the terrible smell. If you decide to do something like this make sure to wear gloves and keep the area ventilated. Keep in mind that bleach isn’t great for delicate fabrics too as it is corrosive.

And after washing and drying this was the finished shirt!

This was really just a test to see what I could do with the bleach. Now that I know how it works and the options I have I want to experiment more. I think this would be a very cool way to give old clothes a make over. I’ve been thinking of using it to paint on designs like leopard print on things too!

Super Cute Crafting Soundtrack

by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 29, 2012 | Craft

When I’m crafting I sometimes find it hard to focus. My mind tends to wander if I’m doing repetitive things so I either do it while we’re watching movies at night or listen to music to get me going.

I like to tailor my playlists depending on my mood so I have a “Let’s get cute things done” list with all of my favorite upbeat songs. If you need something to craft to you can come back to this page and listen to some of them!

Recently we’ve been watching som Korean TV shows like We Got Married so I’ve been in the mood to listen to lots of Kpop again.

Orange Caramel- Lipstick

I like about half of Orange Caramel’s song but this one is so damn catchy it gets stuck in my head all the time! And the music video makes me laugh SO much.

GaIn- Bloom

I love GaIn in BEG but her new solo stuff is so fun, this song is so beautiful.

IU- Good Day

IU has such a lovely voice and this song is so cute. In fact all of her song are cute.

IU- Marshmallow

This one is totally the cutest though, it’s got a gigantic marshmallow man in it! I laugh so hard every time he falls over.

Perfume – Chocolate Disco

Not Kpop but Jpop! Perfume have some fantastic song to craft to, they’ve got good beats and are quite upbeat and repetitive.

Perfume – Macaroni

This is one of the slower more relaxing of Perfume’s songs which I like to listen to at night.

F(x)- Nu ABO

I hated this song so much when I first heard it but we watched the Khuntoria couple on WGM and I heard it so many times it grew on me. Actually one of my favorite songs now *_* Good for walking too, it’s hard not to break out into the dance though haha.

CNblue- I’m a Loner

These guys remind me of a 90’s soft rock band so much, LOVE them!

Secret- Shy Boy

Secret is one of my favorite kpop group ever! This is my favorite song of theirs because the video is SO cute. Their style changes so much between each song and I love their dances.

Miss A- Goodbye Baby

Miss A is another cute group, they’re a little edgier but still sweet. Suzy was very cute in Dream High too. My favorite song of theirs is Goodbye Baby because it’s got a great beat for things like knitting and crochet. You can get in to the rhythm well and by the end of the song your project is half done!

Owl City- Honey and the Bee

Moving on from k and jpop I adore this song from Owl City. It reminds me so much of watching Pushing Daisies which is one of my favorite shows ever.

Aqua- My Oh My

I am a child of the 90’s, I love Aqua, ’nuff said.

Aquabats- Hello Goodnight

James introduced me to the Aquabats and I think this is the cutest song. It always makes me so sleepy though.

Bare Naked Ladies- If I Had A Million Dollars

Now here’s a song which is nice because whenever James and I listen to it we spend ages afterwards thinking about what we’re going to do when we’re millionaires 😀

Cherry Poppin’ Daddies- Stay Just Don’t Stay

Again, child of the 90’s 😀

Billy Idol- Dancing With Myself

I like a lot of older music, I don’t listen to very much current music. If you’ve been reading my blog since before last Christmas you’ll understand my love for Billy Idol. He’s extremely awesome and this is my favorite song of his, not only because it’s catchy and upbeat but because the video is HILARIOUS. I mean seriously, zombies!!

I could really go on with these recommendations all day, I love music and I love songs that are upbeat and catchy!

Some of my other favorite bands are:

The Flight of the Concords, Frankie Wants Out, Jamiroquai, Jason Mraz, older John Mayer, every soft rock song ever from the 90’s, Motion City Soundtrack, Muse, The Ordinary Boys, The Stray Cats, The Voodoo Kreepers, The 88, Girls Generation, silly parodies from youtube including Schmoyoho. The list goes on 😀

In fact now that I’m thinking of all of these again I’m going to go do some crafting!

How To Cover Speakers – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 28, 2012 | Craft, Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Storage/Utility-Tutorials, Tutorial

As I work through my Home Sweet Home projects one thing has always been a bit of a mystery: how to brighten up the tv area? The tv is black, the speakers are black, the stand is black, it’s all black. It’s like a black hole in the living room. I didn’t want to touch the tv or the stand so I decided to give the speakers a mini make over.

Tadaaa, slightly less black:

You need:

Speakers with a removable cover (these are James’s Logitech G51 speakers)
Pretty paper or fabric
Scissors, screw driver etc
Double sided tape

First clean the speakers and remove any dust. Take off the plastic covers, our speakers just unscrewed at the sides.

Use the cover as a guide to cut a strip of paper long enough to go all the way around.

My speakers curved at the back so to get the paper to fit snugly I made several small cuts in the middle.

Like this:

Use double sided tape to stick it to the speakers. The cuts will allow it to fit to the curve easily.

Now pop the plastic back on and screw in place.

Easy!

Repeat to all of your other speakers. James has a surround system which was originally from his music room so I had to do 5 of them.

I added some stuffed toys too and it brightened up the area nicely. I’ll show you the whole thing when I do the big house reveal. We’re getting SO close to being finished!!

I can’t decide if I want to keep the speaker covers on or replace them with some white tulle to make it even lighter. More thought needed!

I’m so excited to be finished the apartment, having made all of these changes has made such a difference in my life!

Cherry Blossom Window Stickers – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 23, 2012 | Craft, Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Tutorial

The window stickers we got from Daiso were almost the first thing we got to decorate our apartment. They really made the apartment brighter and they made it a little less awkward that our windows look directly into the neighbours lounge room.

Unfortunately after 2 years in the sun they were a little worse for wear 🙁 Most of them were fine but a couple were melty and faded.Off to Daiso we went for some replacements! This time rather than the stars I went for something a little more grown up.

Cherry blossoms for a more Spring/Summer feel. I would actually like to change them for every season now! But they only make stars and cherry blossoms =(

They’re a lot harder to see on the windows but they’re so pretty!

I positioned them to flow through the three windows like a breeze is blowing:

They certainly brighten up the place.

The theme I decided to go with for the apartment is floral so this really fits in well. I’m considering adding some matching ones to the kitchen too, what do you think?

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