Craft Archives - Page 36 of 77 - Violet LeBeaux

New Decoden iPhone 4 Case

by VioletLeBeaux | May 8, 2012 | Craft, Decoden, Decoden-Tutorials, Tutorial

My iphone case was getting a bit beaten up and dirty so it was time to change it up for something new and fun!

The end result!

This was something I’d thought about for a while because my current style is trying to talk the line between super cute and a little bit older and classier. I want a phone which can be super cute every day but one that I won’t need to worry about pulling out in a meeting XDSo what is the solution!?INTERCHANGEABLE SLIDING CASES!I bought this cute phone case on ebay for $5, the same one in stores here is $30 >_< Ebay for the win!

Anyway the cool thing about this case is that it comes apart and the back plate slides out so you can remove the back plate without having to take the whole case off. They sell a lot of different designs which are classy and quite understated but this means there’s the possibility of carrying different plates and switching out on the occasion 😀 You could even have different ones depending on outfits! WIN.

VioletLeBeaux-decoden-bling-iphone-48_17105

So I didn’t want to wait another few weeks to get different plates posted and they didn’t have any blingy ones so I decided to make my own from scratch.

You need:

An old sketch book with a plastic cover
Scalpel and scissors
Coloured pencil
Bling
Epoxy glue
Paint matching your plate

You need something hard to use for the face plate. Plastic is good so I recycled an old sketchbook cover, it’s the perfect width to fit into the grooves of the case.

I traced around the edge of the original plate to get the shape.

This is where the coloured pencil is useful because it shows up on the black sketchbook.

After cutting it out and placing it into the case it looked like this:

Yay! Now you need to cut out a hole for the camera 😀 Again trace with the pencil.

Mine next to the original!

Done! Now it’s time for the deco to begin 😀 Deco looks best if you have the same colour base, because it’s so dark I used a white acrylic base coat first.

Then painted it pink with nail polish.

So before I could go any further I had to remove the old deco on my phone. Some of you guys asked when I originally did it whether the contact would really protect the phone… the answer is yes so let’s see how much!

I VERY carefully slid a scalpel around the edges between the contact and the phone. I angled it a little upwards at all times so as to avoid scratching the phone. Seriously, if you’re going to this please be extremely careful.

Because the contact was covered with epoxy glue to hold on the gems it was very hard and easily popped up straight away once I wiggled it a bit.

I managed to remove the entire piece without damaging it 😀

Aaaand crappy photo but my phone doesn’t have a scratch on it. In fact it’s in far better condition than the front is XD

In fact, I made yet another face plate using the deco I removed by resticking it to a white piece of paper and then another plate I cut out. WIN!

Aaanyway, back to deco-ing the new one.

First up I lined up the large pieces and glued them down with epoxy. These are bits of necklaces that BGDino sent me!

I wanted to make sure that I didn’t deco too far around the edges so I kept it in the outside case from this point on. Next I added pearls and other large pieces around the edges of the necklace.

And filled the rest in with some small diamantes.

Super simple design.

And the best part is I can make as many of these as I like and change it up often!

I’ll never get bored 😀

I’m going to try making some painted ones next too 😀

You could even change them depending on how big the handbag you’re using is haha! Little for dinners and then big for and everyday bag XD

Hope you guys enjoyed! What do you think my next design should be? I could do a Bergamot one!!

How To Make A Felt Pinwheel Craft Tutorial

by VioletLeBeaux | May 6, 2012 | Craft, Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

Another basic craft for today ^_^ Pinwheels!

I’m sure you all made these in school out of paper but this is the more permanent version which can be an adorable hair accessory or brooch depending on the size you make them.

You need:

Felt
Needle and thread
Scissors
Something pretty to put in the middle such as a button etc.

You need to cut out 2 felt squares, I cut mine by folding a piece of felt like this and cutting around it.

After cutting fold two of the points together and then again. Press the folds down so they leave a slight indent and unfold. This is the easiest way to mark out where you need to cut.

Snip down the folds but not all the way to the center. You should have something like this:

Repeat with the other sheet of felt.

Now you have the pieces you just need to fold it together! Place the pieces of felt on top of each other and fold one of the points to the center like this.

Fold every second point into the middle. You can move the different coloured felts so more of one or the other is displayed.

Stitch them in the middle.

And then cover the stitching with something pretty like this button I made in another post. You could use a ribbon bow or a flower too.

Stitch the whole thing to a bobby pin or a hair clip and that’s all there is to it. Yay for repurposed children’s crafts 😀

Beautiful Pin Cushion Part 1 – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | May 3, 2012 | Craft, Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Storage/Utility-Tutorials, Tutorial

Sometimes it’s the small details that make all the difference in decorating and having clutter look less like clutter.

Today for Home Sweet Home I’m tackling a mini project which is the start of the wider craft area re-vamp.

This was originally supposed to be my first project XDSo let’s start small!

Project 1.

Organise the pin cushion!

Pick matching colours
Remake pin cushion as it’s old

Theory: cluttered crap looks good if it’s made from similar colours!

Old version of the pin cushion was made a couple of years ago and it’s taken a hell of a beating. The new version will be a little pink hedgehog but that’s part two of the project!

Part 1 of the project is something you can do with your eyes closed… well probably not because, you know, pins are pointy… but you know what I mean!

My pin collection is a mish mash of several types. I don’t think I’ve ever bought pins, I tend to just inherit them when people are getting rid of their sewing collections. So it looks like this:

Which is useful but also not very pretty because they don’t match. Also half of them are bent or broken and stuck somewhere inside the cushion >_<

So step 1, pull all the pins out and throw out the broken ones. Sort everything into colours.

Decide on a colour scheme, I picked shades of pink/white/red/purple and only put those colours back. So as not to be wasteful I donated the other pins to a friend’s sewing collection 😀

Done!

It’s amazing the difference just having similar colours makes. The cushion doesn’t quite match the pins but that’s on the project list too. I really think that little details like this make all the difference to the big picture!

Next step, hedgehog 😀

Quick High Waisted Skirt Modification Tutorial

by VioletLeBeaux | May 2, 2012 | Clothing-Tutorials, Craft, Tutorial

Nice quick skirt modification today.

I used to wear this skirt when I worked in an office, it’s really pretty but it hangs too low on my waist for my current wardrobe. I originally bought it at the Valley Girl outlet store for $4 and like 6 years later it’s still going strong 😀

These days I wear things of different silhouette so I decided to take the skirt in and make it high waisted, here’s the end result.

This was very straight forward. Skirt before:I tried on the skirt and held it as high as I wanted it. Then I folded the left over fabric and pinned it in place. This is the view while having it on, you may need someone else’ help to pin without sticking yourself XD

I then took it off and made sure there were no creases along the fold. Once it was completely flat and following the lines of the pleats already in the skirt, I stitched it down.

After 😀

VioletLeBeauxHigh-Waisted-Work-Skirt241_17098

And ready to wear out 😀

Time to get back to my filing haha 😀

My New White Painted Make Up Table- Home Sweet Home!

by VioletLeBeaux | May 1, 2012 | Craft, Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Other-Tutorials, Storage/Utility-Tutorials, Tutorial

Yay for another Home Sweet Home post finally 😀

Honestly I feel like with this project I finally made some kind of progress with the apartment. The little details always make a difference but sometimes you need something really big to show the progress properly. I hate working for a long time and not being able to see results, that’s why I can never stick to one craft at a time I just get bored too easily.

So this vanity is both my most loved and least favorite piece of furniture in the house. I loved it enough to drag it down from Brisbane and I hate it because it doesn’t look good with the style of apartment and it really darkens up the room.

Also after a few days of use it looks like this…

Well realistically it looks more like this…Honestly I’m one of those people who can’t keep things neat unless there is an exact system to do so >_<

How can I keep stuff clean?

Wipe off bench top
Everything needs a home

DIY Ideas!

Paint table white
Cover guitar case
Make box for camera
Better lighting set up
Storage for back drop
Bin for rubbish.

LET’S DO IT!

So problem number 1 is that it’s dark wood. I love dark wood but it’s just not good for this house where everything is light and white. I previously covered the stool with pink leopard print so it seemed fitting to paint all of the wooden parts white.

I chose to do this with acrylic paint because:

I can paint indoors without killing myself with fumes
I can easily remove it when we move and I want the dark wood again
It’s cheap as hell, you can get huge bottles for $2 at craft stores or junk stores

VioletLeBeaux-Vanity-Table-DIY-50188_15690

Diary entry:

Le Fancy Stool!

We started with this… I removed the seat and covered it with awesome.

Fancy level 20%

That left us with this. Not bad but so dark!

Fancy level 50%

So I painted it with acrylic and gave a top coat of watery PVA.

And we have this…

Fancy level 90%

Winner!!

I tested it out on the stool first in case it ended up sucking 😀

It took a couple of coats to get a nice finish. I began painting without bothering to remove the seat part so I wouldn’t get paint on the floor but after doing most of the top I removed it to get closer to the edges.

Eventually it started look good 😀 I used a sponge for an even finish.

When I had the finish that I wanted I mixed some PVA glue with water to create a wash. I painted over the whole thing with it. The reason for this is to protect the paint and make it more durable. It also gives a slightly shiny finish to it.

Taadaaaaa 😀

So with the test run complete I moved on to the actual vanity 😀

Beauty!

The current beauty set up is messy and awkward

I was extremely dirty from all of the make up and dust floating around so step one was to clean it up.

Next was removing all of the pieces I could without damaging it.

A couple of coats of paint later and I was well on the way to a nice vanity! I added a pink doily to see if I liked it at this point too.

I painted the other parts too including the mirror. I masked it off with tape first to make sure the mirror wasn’t damaged.

The round parts were the most irritating to get smooth.

Ok so I wanted to make this nice and durable and to be able to clean it easily and not stress about spilling make up on it. The solution? Book covering contact!

I decided that I liked the pink doily so I glued it down.

I cut out the length I needed.

The little grids made it nice and easy to line things up.

I cut out tabs so it could go around the top part.

Then I slowly pulled out the paper and smoothed it all down.

When it got to the heart I made sure to smooth out all of the little bubbles as I went. It was very irritating to get right!

Looking good!

Aaaad all put together!

Getting there but not quiiiite what I wanted..

So I covered James’ guitar case with some nice fabric XD

Sorry James… well not really sorry XD

Putting things back in I was more careful with organisation and making sure that I had things I used often at hand and packing up other things I used less often. Win! I still haven’t organised the stuff on the far left pink shelves because they are going to be folded and stored away soon but everything is coming along 😀

James’ guitar case becomes a nice shelf for hair products. I don’t know how I managed to buy only pink hair products, clearly it’s ingrained deeply in my subconscious haha!

This is my set up for filming videos, lots and lots of lighting but it also means I can’t see the big mirror so I had to add a second smaller mirror angled so I can see.

I have a silicone pot mat to keep my straightener on and everything has a space to stay in, there’s even a heart container to dump old eyelashes in.

Things I use every day go up here and my little white picket fence container sits next to it.

So much happier with it all clean and neat. It’s easy to keep clean and makes the whole room look so much brighter.

I am really happy with my first big project for the Home Sweet Home 😀 What do you guys think??

Quick Craft- Leopard Top Fix

by VioletLeBeaux | Apr 27, 2012 | Clothing-Tutorials, Craft, Tutorial

I bought this leopard print top/dress thing ages ago in Valley Girl and I love it to death but I always felt slightly uncomfortably wearing it because it’s quite low cut and the straps were too long for me. I already altered it by cutting off the bubble bottom so now it was finally time to do something about the top section.

All I used was some matching black netted fabric and a sewing machine.I cut a piece large enough to cover the cleavage area and folded it at the top so I had one less seam to sew.