When I’m sick I tend to sulk a lot. I drink a lot of tea and sulk XD Sometimes you need something little to lift your spirits like something sparkly and pretty!
I usually use this Breathe Easy ointment from Perfect Potions to clear my nose and throat. I bought it for my hayfever when I was like 14 and have had it ever since. When I went to decorate it a bit I looked at the label for the first time…
It expired 6 years ago *________________*
Serious fail, I can’t believe I didn’t see that earlier or even think about it!!
Long story short I decided to keep the nice jar and fill it with some generic chest rub. I’ll have to find a Perfect Potions and rebuy one but now I’m too busy being depressed thinking about how long ago buying that was!!
To make your own glittery chest rub you need:
Bottle
Chest rub
Glitter
PVA Glue
Paper
First remove any labels and the sticky residue they leave.
Place the piece of paper on the table (makes clean up a lot easier!) and place a layer of glitter on it as wide as the bottle.
Cover the bottle with PVA glue.
Roll the bottle gently along the glitter.
Keep going until it’s covered.
Wipe off any stray pieces and leave it to dry. Once it’s one you can paint it with another layer of PVA to hold it all in or you can give it a very good brush off into the sink and hope for the best! You could also give it a blast with some non sticky hairspray to hold it in place, I used to do that with shimmer and glitter on drawings to hold them all in place ^_^
I added a little charm at the top too.
Now breathe easy and enjoy feeling slightly better!
Being sick really sucks so I hope none of your managed to catch anything during this cold season!
Dear Old Boring Black Cardigan With The Weird Sleeves That Make My Arms Look Dumb,
Please stop being so old and boring so I have more reason to wear you out.
Sincerely,
Violet.
Apparently writing letters to your clothing doesn’t actually work. Who knew?
So this is how I fixed that problem instead and turned Old Boring Black Cardigan into something which is a little more my style and a tiny bit Chanel inspired.
This is original old boring cardigan:You need:
Contrasting elastic
Needle/Thread/Sewing machine
Old boring cardigan
I thought about adding some other decorations but ended up sticking to something more classic.
First snip off all of the buttons.
Pin the elastic around the edge of the cardigan. Make sure to try it on so it all sits flat.
Stitch it in place along the side closest to the edge. I decided to just stitch the one edge so I could still use the button holes underneath. Fold the edges of the elastic over the bottom too so they are hidden.
Add two more strips of elastic horizontally like little fake pockets. Make sure to fold their edges over too so they’re not exposed.
Stitch in place. If you want you can stitch the buttons back in place too or just use a brooch to hold it closed. To fix the bunchy sleeve problem I re-hemmed the edges so they sat flat instead of being gathered.
Taadaa!
Cute and much more interesting than Old Boring Black Cardigan. Now it’s Exciting Awesome Classic Cardigan.
Dear Violet,
THX for making me over LOL. I’m glad you actually take me out of the cupboard now, let’s be BFFs 😀 😀 😀
Love,
<3<3<3<3<3 Awesome Classic Cardigan<3<3<3<3<3
Now if I could just teach the cardigan that text speak isn’t appropriate to use in letters. Baby steps…
Another quick fix for a Home Sweet Home Project today: mini flower vases.
I bought these bee paper clips ages ago because they were so cute but I couldn’t think of a way to use them. When I was cleaning up the house in time for James’ parents to visit I finally decided to just stick them in some vases with flowers.
This is what I used:
I had these two vases that I bought at a thrift store years ago. They had little beads which are supposed to absorb cigarette smoke but apparently don’t work at all. Our neighbours are all smokers and their disgusting smoke comes through the vents in our bathroom so I’ve had to fill it with things like this >_<
Anyway they didn’t work so I figured I would stick them on our bed side tables. I found fake flowers in my stash which matched each one.
I then hot glued them onto stems which were long enough to reach the bottom.
And added the cute little bees!
Buzzzzz ^_^
So the blue one ended up on James’ side of the bed:
And the pink one on mine:
Another very quick project which makes a nice difference! Though make sure the stems you use for the flowers are plastic not wire otherwise they will rust!
Now I just need to get some more spray paint so I can actually finish our bed side tables!! >_< Baby steps!
I don’t know why I can’t seem to settle on a phone design XD This one I think will be sticking around for a long time because I really love it. It’s over the top and completely impractical which I think is a little bit me!
And this one has my initial on it which is very much me 😀
Enjoy some iphone deco picture spam before I get into how I did it ^_^
So before anyone asks again, I use epoxy glue. That’s the kind I prefer to use for deco. You can use other types too, E9000 is very popular but I prefer epoxy because it’s cheap, does the job and is readily available.
Step one was to decide on the outside design. I prefer to do the outsides and work inwards because then you have no problems with uneven borders.
Next I laid out the rough design. I left the basic design on the case because it made an interesting effect on some of the clear gems. The bow and it’s ribbon trails are the biggest focal point of this design.
One by one I glued on the large pieces.
Next I did the V. I didn’t have the black jewels in many sizes so I just painted a couple of purple ones with nail polish. Easy fix!
Once that was done I started paving from the bottom up. Again I prefer to start at the bottom edge and move up because any gaps can be hidden under the bow but having gaps at the bottom edges really sucks.
I used a mixture of pink crystals and pearls along with some tiny pearl beads to fill gaps and random black jewels as spots.
I paved all the way up to the bow.
Then continued over to the other side once it’s all dry. With paving techniques like this it’s better to do it one section at a time so you’re not trying to move everything at once or having pieces slip into the wrong place when they dry.
And done!
The whole thing took around 2 hours, the biggest chunk of time was actually deciding on the design because I was being so indecisive. After I was finished I really wasn’t sure I liked it at all so I added a Bergamot charm and that really finished off the look and tied in all of the black pieces. Over all I think this is my favorite design so far on my phone!
Yay a sewing tutorial! I receive a lot of requests for sewing tutorials and I do want to do them but they take a lot more time to prepare and it can be hard to make patterns which actually resize to any body type and shape correctly.
So I thought we would start it off with the most basic skirt possible. There are no zippers, no overlocking, no buttons, no waist band sewing, no anything. As long as you can sew in a straight line you can make this skirt.
It’s great because it’s extremely versatile too, you can use this basic pattern for so many different types of skirt and styles. Make it longer for a basic Lolita style skirt, make it shorter and sit higher on the waist for the kind of Gyaru skirt that’s been in all the magazines recently, make several layers or ruffles for something more fairy kei. It all depends on fabric choice and how you decorate it.
Mine isn’t any particular style, just the bare basics so you can see the idea and run with it.
You need:
Fabric
Elastic for the waist
Lace for decoration
A sewing machine is recommended but you could hand sew this if you didn’t mind taking the extra time.
I used some left over fabric from curtains I made.
Measure a piece of elastic around where you want the skirt to sit on your waist. It should not be loose but not pulled either. Add another 3cm or so on to that measurement so it can easily overlap the ends. Make sure it’s stretchy enough that you can easily get it over your hips to put the skirt on and off.
Next cut two long rectangles of your fabric. It needs to be as long as you want the skirt plus around 5cm. The measurement on the long side should be minimum twice the length of the piece of elastic you cut earlier. You can make it even wider if you want, this will result in a more floofy ruffled skirt.
Place the bad sides of the fabric together and stitch down the short edge on one side. You should either fold the seam over again and stitch in place or zigzag stitch down the edge to prevent it from fraying later.
They should form one very long rectangle now when unfolded.
When scrunched to the same length of the elastic it should look like this.
Now we need to make it an even ruffle. Some machines have a ruffling foot and some people prefer to do this by hand.
The easiest way for a beginner to get an even ruffle is to use the gathering technique. Anchor the thread at one end of the side you want to ruffle. To anchor sew straight then reverse the stitch back up the line you made then continue down again the correct direction. This will prevent it unraveling later.
Sew a straight line right down it around 1cm from the top. When you get to the end, don’t anchor it and sew right off the edge.
Cut the threads to be quite long. Grab the top thread with your hand and gently push the end of the fabric away. It will begin to gather up on the thread. Keep pulling the thread and pushing the fabric until the gather is the length you need.
If you have weak thread I would suggest sewing two stitch lines to gather because it can be really frustrating to get almost to the end and have the thread snap!
Ok so you should gather the top so it’s as long as your elastic is when stretched out. To find this out, lay the fabric down and stretch the elastic with your hands over the top, if they’re roughly the same length you’re good to move on to the next step.
Now we need to sew the fabric and elastic together. Place the gathered end of the fabric (right side up) on top of the end of the elastic. Anchor them together with a couple of stitches.
As you sew them together you should use one hand to stretch the elastic out under the gathered fabric. It can be a little tricky to get the hang of but I find this gives a much better result that zigzaging unstretched as some people prefer.
Try to keep your stitching as straight as possible but don’t stress too much because this will all be covered later.
You should have just enough fabric to go the length of the stretched elastic so stitch to the end and tie off.
So now you’ve got a big long ruffle attached to a piece of elastic.
At this point you want to pull out the gathering thread you used because it should all be securely on the elastic now!
Up close the raw edges look pretty crappy so we’ll hide them now
The easiest way to do this is to take a piece of lace and stitch it on either side of the raw edge. The top stitch line is on the elastic and the bottom is on the gathered fabric.
You want to stretch the elastic out as you go again so the lace will ruffle up when it’s unstretched. Sew on either side on the lace and you’ll end up with something like this:
See that the ends of the fabric are totally incased? That will help prevent fraying so the skirt will last longer.
Now we need to finish off the bottom of the skirt. I had some left over lace so I folded the bottom of the fabric over to create a seam and stitched the lace on too. You can add anything you like here which fits the style you’re aiming for. Just make sure you either zigzag the edge of the fabric or fold the seam over twice so the edge is encased that way it won’t all come undone in the wash!
Now all you need to do is sew down the side and it’s finished! Fold the skirt in half with the good side in. Stitch down the side starting from the elastic and moving to the bottom seam. Make sure it all matches up well otherwise you’ll get an odd shaped skirt. Either zigzag down this edge too or fold again and stitch so it’s not exposed.
Turn it around the right way and you’re all finished!
Now you have a cute skirt and the know how to make one in any style you like!
See I told you it wasn’t that hard!
Very easy once you get the hang of it so you can make them quickly!
Of course keep in mind that if you made yours out of curtains like I did you should probably avoid taking your photos in front of the same curtains or else you will suddenly have the awesome ability to camouflage!
POWERS ACTIVATE!!!
Fail. Either way I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and let me know how you go with it! Can’t wait to see what you guys make!
This time I took some poorly fitted weird boots my Mum was getting rid of and turned them into cute ankle boots!
I made these…
Out of these…
I love them now! Ok let’s get into it 😀
Things I used:
Old boots
Faux fur trim from an old jacket hood
Chain and some charms
Felt
Needle and thread
So let’s get into it!
First I pulled up the cover part so I could see what I was dealing with. Easy enough, it was all fabric except for the bottom part which was faux leather.
So I cut off the top.
This was quite a cute shape but I had the idea in my head to make the front more the shape of a court shoe.
So I snipped it down into a “V” shape.
To finish off the raw edges I cut strips of black felt and stitched the around the edges.
They folded over to hide the edges.
Done:
Next I removed the faux fur trim around the old hood.
Done!
Then I stitched it around the edge of the shoe tops.
Then it was just about accessories!
I stitched two rows of chain coming from the fur.
Then added the crosses in. This is is much darker than my usual style but I really like it at the moment!
The charms are easily removable too so I could switch them out with something pinker later when the mood strikes me ^_^
DONE! It really didn’t take very long and it was quite fun to do.
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.
