by VioletLeBeaux | Jul 7, 2010 | Craft, Shoe-Tutorials, Tutorial
Heehee I think a lot of people have been waiting for this boot customization tutorial! I’ve been keeping everyone on my Twitter up to date with the progress on the boots that I bought on Saturday.
See boots and I are actually bitter enemies. I have *never* found a pair of boots that have fit me well. Ever. The problem seems to be that I have small feet but I also have abnormally small calves so every single pair of boots, no matter how fitted, look like cowboy boots. Not being a cowboy, I have no use for cowboy boots.
So after all these years of searching I decided to take things into my own hands!
I bought this pair of boots from Target 50% off for $45. I chose them because I liked the heel, the rounded toe and they fit my feet comfortably. Because they are thigh high there was lots of room to play with. I also liked the velvety wedge thing on the outside.
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Unfortunately the leg part was massive. So I set about making them much cuter! (Yes I’m going to make you wait until the end of the tutorial to see the end result mwahaha build the suspense!)So first thing is first… let’s turn these suckers into knee high’s :DPut the boots on and measure how high you want them. I wanted mine to be knee high.
Remove the boots and cut the tops off, make sure to leave an extra inch for seams. Also make sure the zip part is at the bottom of the boot so you can still use it!! From this point on you should be careful when using the zip that it doesn’t fly off the end!
Oh and just for the record, they are not this shiny/cheap looking in person, they are actually a nice matt black but to show the details and stitching I had to use a lot of flash >_<
Now put the boots back on (carefully because of the zip). As you can see, they are not form fitting at all. I have drawn where my actual leg is over the top of the picture ^_^ The main thing I want to do is fit them around my ankles and calves.
Let’s get going!
Most boots have seams up the front and the back, by changing this seam you can very easily change the entire shape of the boot!
Move the lining away from the seams and unpick them down the front and back of the boot.
You end up with something like this:
Put the boot back on and pin the seams back in place in the way that you want them. Pin both the front and the back.
Take them off again and thread a needle. If there is any excess leather/vinyl in the seams you should trim it off now. Be careful not to trim too closely just in case you change your mind about the fit later.
Turn the edges of the seams inside again and re-pin them in place.
Now get sewing! Thread your needle and choose a stitch that matches the rest of the boot. Sew up the front and the back ^_^ If your boots are made of a heavy leather you will need a special leather needle. Mine are synthetic and quite thin so hand stitching was not a problem.
So this is what you end up with, the modified boot is on the left and the old one is on the right.
Un-modified on the left and fitted on the right. You can see the differences around the ankle and the calves.
Much much much better fit and more comfortable because of it.
Now repeat on the other boot ^_^
You will end up with something along these lines…
The last thing you should do if you’re just fitting the boots is to create a seam around the tops and prevent the zips from coming off. Do this by turning the tops inside and sandwiching the raw edges between the lining. Sew around the tops and secure the tops of the zips too. Done!
Now that’s all well and good but they are still very plain right? There are a couple of things you can do about that. I decided to use the left overs that I cut from the tops to make some cute accessories.
I thought about cutting it into scallops and adding a new top like this:
Instead I decided to recycle some old Innocent World socks ^_^
I cut off the lacy tops and sewed them into place on the top of the boots.
Lastly I used some of the left over fabric to make some little bows for the front…
I used black lace for the middle so they matched the new tops of the boots ^_^ I sewed them on the front and that’s it!
Taaaadaaaa!
Lovely fitted boots with bows and lace! OMG THEY ACTUALLY FIT!!
I think one of the things I love so much is that they are cute but not too over the top so I can wear them with so many things!
Jesus Diamate boots: $300+
Violet’s Boots: $45 plus a few hours of work
I am so happy with them because they are really cute and also really comfortable! I took them out for a test drive shopping today and after 2 hours walking there was no pain at all. I think I’m going to add a little bit of padding on the inside so they are like wearing slippers mwahaha!
So was it worth the wait? What do you all think? ^_^ Let me know if any of you try out the boot customization tutorial yourselves! |
by VioletLeBeaux | Jul 2, 2010 | Craft
Upcycled sewing seems to be a fairly popular buzzword lately in craft circles
When we decided we were moving to Melbourne I was worried that I wouldn’t fit my whole wardrobe in our car… let alone anything else! So I spent hours trying to decide what to donate to op shops and what to keep.
Some items I was keeping just on the off chance I would like them in the future even though I secretly knew I would never wear them again…I didn’t want to part with some of them but they were un-wearable in their current incarnations so it forced me to think of how to change them so I would wear them.
And that is the story of these two sewing projects I did before we left!
Firstly I had these two skirts to give the upcycling treatment:
The white one sat really strangely and didn’t go with anything I owned while the pink one was completely see-through in bright light as I found out the first time I wore it out >_<
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2 snips of the waist bands and 1 row of over-locking and I now have this:
Cute, comfy, opaque and quite versatile in my wardrobe! Problem solved! |
Next I found this dress in a thrift store quite a while ago and really loved it… well some of it. I loved the pattern, the frill, the pearl buttons and the fact it was made out of comfy t-shirt fabric. Unfortunately it looked really terrible on because there was no definition between bust and waist and the skirt had a bubble hem. Not flattering at all so it was banished to be room wear.
I couldn’t leave it behind so I cut off a lot of the hem, added a ruffle with the parts I’d cut off, replaced the button, added darts for waist definition and re-worked the waist tie. I haven’t decided yet if it will be a going-out dress or remain super cute at home wear but either way it’s certainly an improvement ^_^
Have you guys ever recycled your clothes?
I keep getting requests for more sewing and sewing related tutorials but I’ve been a bit hesitant to write anything because it’s hard to write sewing tutorials that will work for everyone.
I am thinking about it more and more though so I think there will be more upcycled sewing in the future ^_^
by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 29, 2010 | Craft, Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial
Hello, time for the first of a few very basic tutorials: how to make a basic hair bow!
This week I am going to try and have a post online every day so please keep checking back for everything! I’m also going to be showing you some of the reader requests I’ve been getting lately ^_^
Before we get to the tutorial, there is a bit of a special announcement. One of my tutorials has been featured in Eleanor Zine which is (I think) the first web-zine for Western Gyaru fashion! How cool is that? They have chosen to feature my tutorial on how to make Usa-mimi/pointy bunny ear headbands 😀 I might be doing more things in future with them so go check out Eleanor Zine and if you have a Gyaru trend you want me to show you how to make just drop me a line on my Contact Page!
So today after lots of requests I’m going to show you how to make a very basic hair bow just like this one you guys loved yesterday…
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Gather your materials, this is what you need to make a basic hair bow:
- Fabric
- Scissors
- Orange stick/Pen/something pointy
- Needle and thread
- Headband/bobby pins/brooch back/something to attach it to yourself.
This is the most basic way I know to make a bow so we’ll start out easy and in other posts I’ll show you how to make more complicated ones.
Cut a rectangle of fabric the size you want your bow to be. I generally work to the ratio that the long side of the bow should be 2.5 times the length of the short sides. You can either cut one large piece and fold it in half or two pieces the correct size.
You will also need to cut a piece for the middle bit to hold it all together. For thin fabrics like this you should make it as long as your index finger and 3 times as wide as you want the middle bit to end up… if that makes sense ^_^
Thread your needle with some matching thread. Now let’s make the large part of the bow. Fold your fabric piece in half with the nice side on the inside.
Start in one corner and sew up the side. Use a plain old running stitch and if you aren’t planning to edge your fabric make sure to keep a decent seem allowance to avoid fraying. I should mention that all of this can be done on a sewing machine but as a lot of you don’t have sewing machines I thought I would do hand stitching instructions then if you do have a sewing machine you can adapt them!
When you get to the corner, keep sewing around the other side. Keep going until you’ve sewn up everything except a 2cm hole. Tie off your thread.
Now going through the hole, turn the whole thing inside out…
You get something like this:
Now using your pointy object, poke it inside the bow and use it to wiggle the corners into nice points ^_^
Then you get this, which looks much nicer:
Now let’s close up that hole! Fold the raw edges inside the bow so they follow the rest of the stitching and form a nice pointy corner. Using your needle and thread hand stitch it closed.
Now it’s time to pleat it into a bow! Fold your bow in half…
Now on each side of that fold, fold the remaining fabric in half. It should look like a concertina and you should have 3 visible pleats.
Now use your needle and thread to place a stitch to hold it all in place.
Now let’s make the middle bit. Get your other piece of fabric and fold it in thirds. This is the first fold:
This is the second fold:
Now wrap it around the middle of your bow ^_^
Sew it around the back and cut off the extra fabric.
Easy done! Now how are you going to attach it to your head? I took a headband and slid it through the tie part of the bow. I have also used the same bow by sliding a bobby pin through the back. You could attach it to a brooch or even sew it onto a ring, the possibilities are endless!
Tomorrow I’ll show you the whole outfit I wore it with ^_^. Let me know if any of you try to make a basic hair bow like this! |
by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 28, 2010 | Craft, Decoden-Tutorials, Other-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial
Before we get into the sparkly bangle tutorial I just wanted to let everyone who was waiting for me to reply to comments know that it’s all done!
Every comment (other than ones that were posted this morning) have been replied to so if you were waiting for an answer please go have a look ^_^ Next step is catching up on all my emails! I am trying really hard to get back on top of things so please have patience with me!
I am a big lover of deco in pretty much every form and I’ve been making lots of accessories lately. I’ve always liked over the top jewelery but lately I’ve found myself liking big bangles too 😀
So today I’m going to show you how to make your own deco’d chunky bangle like this:
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So gather your materials…This is what you need:
- Jewels (I’m using 2 sizes and 2 different colours)
- Epoxy glue
- Felt pen marker in the same colour as your jewels
- Felt in a matching colour
- Base to put it on (more on this in a second)
Now the base! You can use anything that is roughly the right shape. Going from left to right there is a bangle I bought on sale for $1 at a discount store, a wooden base bangle I bought at Spotlight that’s specifically made for this purpose and lastly the cardboard roll out of the center of a ball of crochet yarn. |
Any of these work just as well and range in price from free (if you’ve already got the yarn) or $5.95 for the purpose made base.
After you pick your base (I chose the Spotlight one) colour the whole thing in with the felt pen so it looks similar to our jewels ^_^ This is so that when you add the jewels you can’t see light wood through the gaps.
Lay out your jewels and prepare your epoxy glue.
With the bangle flat on the table you should start by gluing one ring of jewels around the top edge. Make sure this ring is completely straight because it’s going to set the tone for the rest of the bracelet. Wait for it to dry then repeat on the other side ^_^
Now decide on the pattern you’re going to do. I chose to do alternating large and small jewels with a row of small right around the edges. Lay down one line of glue from top to bottom and position your first line of jewels. Again it’s important to get the first row right because it will effect the rest of the bracelet.
Start going around adding more and more rows 😀 I decided to change it up and do a couple of different patterns! I did straight small jewels and red as well.
Lastly you should cut a piece of felt and glue it around the inside so the wood doesn’t have to touch your arm ^_^
Aaaand there you have it ^_^
Taaadaaa ^_^
It’s so shiny when you get it out in the sun! Let me know if any of you give the sparkly bangle tutorial a go!
by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 25, 2010 | Craft, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial
Yay we’re back to tutorials again today it’s how to DIY your own flatback pearls!
Still no real internet but dong my best. Thanks for sticking with me and I promise that all comments will be replied to very soon *fingers crossed*
Do you guys ever get to the end of a gigantic deco project and realize you don’t have enough jewels or pearls to finish? I HATE that feeling. I hate having unfinished projects too! Especially if I’ve ordered from overseas it takes forever to get another order ;_;
So this is a stop gap solution I’ve found to avoid having to wait for an order from overseas!
What you need to DIY your own flatback pearls:
- String of cheap pearls or something round and the right size
- Fimo or Sculpy clay
- Sharp knife
- White nail polish
- Pearl nail polish (I’m using a Sally Hansen)
Ok first thing is first. Get your Fimo/Sculpey and using a colour you don’t like make a blob.
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Using your string of pearls press in over half way to create a nice round dent.
Like this:
If you’re doing it with a loose pearl/bead then use a piece of thread to fish it out of the mold like this:
Now cook your mold according to the packet instructions.
Using the mold you’ve just created start making pearls. Do this by taking a large chunk of some Fimo/Sculpey pressing it into the mold, pulling it out and slicing it off the round part with a sharp knife. It will take some practice before you get the technique down ^_^
Now cook your pearls and let them cool. It doesn’t matter what colour you made them because it’s time to paint!
Lay your pearls out on paper or something you don’t mind getting polish on. Paint them white.
It will most likely take you a few coats of white if you started with a dark colour. You can see I was experimenting with a few other pearls shapes below too ^_^
This is roughly what you want to end up with:
Now lets turn them into pearls!
This takes a few coats too. Make sure you let them dry completely before each new coat or they will never dry properly!
Peel them off the paper and you will end up with something like this:
If you made them with a dark colour you might want to paint the bottoms too but it might effect how well they stick for deco projects.
So they are not perfect and they aren’t as good as store bought ones buuuuut they are perfect space fillers in deco projects and once they are surrounded by other jewels you will never tell the difference ^_^
So yay for tutorials again! Let me know if any of you diy your own flatback pearls, I’d love to see how they turn out! |
by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 4, 2010 | Advert, Craft, Decoden, Decoden-Tutorials, Other-Tutorials, Review, Tutorial
Almost 3 weeks ago Jolene at The Sticker Monster sent me a package of fun things to review for your guys and seeing as I have such a sweet spot for deco I just couldn’t say no to making a decoden tutorial 😀
This is a super long post but stay with me because I’m going to show you how to make a whole bunch of really cool things!
Now onwards to the review!
This was the package that arrived on my doorstep… I couldn’t believe how much was packed into it! The delicate items were very well protected and nothing was damaged at all. It took around 1 week to arrive from Malaysia. Shipping- 5/5I had to giggle at the adorable business card!
So what was inside?
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Several packs of Swarovski crystals in many colours and sizes. I’ve never used Swarovskibefore so I was really excited to try them out.
Lots of yummy plastic cabochon, pretzels, flowers, whipped cream and chocolates! This was my favorite part of the package, mwahaha more sweets to add to my collection!
10 fimo fruit canes in some really fun designs.
Pre-glued jewels on sheets in cute designs
Pre-glued pearls, big jewels and mini boullions in gold and silver.
Of course there was a whole host of their trademarked stickers! Glow in the dark, glittery and little hearts, totally adorable!
Prestuck felt sheet and furry leopard fabric sheet.
Jolene was also lovely enough to include 2 sheets of special deco protection paper. Basically the idea is that you glue your deco design to the sticker and then put it on your expensive items (laptop/cellphone/whatever) and then if you don’t like the design/want to sell your laptop you can remove it with no damage!
So I think the questions you’re all asking by now is “What on earth did you do with all of these supplies??”… |
Well I was a little overwhelmed with all the design ideas so it took me a while to decide what to do first XD
First thing I did was decorate my make up brushes!
So you need:
- Make up brushes
- Preglued jewel stripes
- Scissors
It’s really easy to do… just measure how many rows of jewels you need while they are still on the plastic, remove the plastic, stick them down and press down for a minute to make sure the glue sticks. 
I chose to add the jewels at the top of the metal band because it won’t interfere when I need to wash them.
I had some jewels left over so I added a stripe to each of the ends ^_^
Very easy to do and very pretty no? Over the last 3 weeks I’ve used my brushes every day and washed them as per usual with no damage at all. The only tip I have is don’t submerge the pre-stuck jewels in water, if you do by accident just pat it dry with a paper towel.
I liked it so much that I did my Magical Pick deco tool as well! My lovely friend Jinsent this to me and as soon as I can get the proper internet back I’m going to tell you all about it!
Now onto some real nail art 😀
Have you guys ever used fimo canes? They are so much fun! I’ve actually got pretty much a lifetime supply of them now because the delightful Jacie sent me a bunch of them which are going to be featured in another tutorial too ^_^
So I’ll cover the basics here… they are made of fimo or sculpy and they come in sticks with pretty much any design you can think of.
Using a *very* sharp knife you cut them into small slices. This can be really tricky because they like to roll around. I got around this by taping the cane to the cutting board so I could have more control with my hands.
You want the slices to be *really* thin because it makes them more flexible to shape around your nails when you stick them on.
Apparently you can get over 100 slices from one cane sometimes! I got sore hands after cutting for a while so I made James finish them off XD I cut them all up at once so I never have to do it again!
Keeping on the topic of nailart… these are the nails that I’ve been wearing for the last two weeks. Over two weeks I managed to move house with these babies on so they were super durable!
I used the little silver boullions to fill in spaces between the diamantes, it gives it lots of extra punch!
Heehee typically I managed to lose my first nail like 20min before James was ready to take the photos yesterday *_* You can spot one of the little fimo cane bows from Jacie in there too ^_^
I decided to experiment by using a big fabric bow this time too. It was very durable and went well and by using hand sanitiser a lot I was able to keep it nice and hygienic. Cute but I probably wouldn’t do it again because I fiddled with it too much! You can see the nails survived the move by my skin didn’t, time for a hand treatment!
Next it’s sticker time!
I’ve been looking at ways to deco my laptop for a while, I deco’d the entire front section twice but didn’t like either design. The second I saw these little heart shaped stickers I knew I wanted to stick them to my keyboard!
It’s fairly self explanatory… I just stuck them on randomly ^_^
I also used some matching yummy macaron/sweets stickers that the lovely Trashtastikagave me and went crazy with them!
LOVE the finished product and it’s a great starting point to inspire the rest of my laptop’s design. I’m going to use the deco protection sheets on the back of my laptop and start again with an even better design!
This next project was probably my biggest overall… I was very inspired by the leopard print fabric and the pre-glued deco sheets to finally decorate my little handy camera and it’s case 😀
First thing I did was add some of the little black rose stickers to all of the buttons on the back of the camera. They were the perfect size! The flash from the camera makes them look kind of shiny but in natural light you can’t see the sticker part you only see the black roses with silver outlines.
Nice and classy unlike the rest of my design which pretty much slaps you in the face with the pink 😉
I used the prestuck jewels and the sticky leopard print for the case. 
Again this was one of the easiest project I’ve ever done… I stuck the sheet of jewels on the front of the case, it fit perfectly!
And I stuck leopard print on the rest of the case. I added a stripe of lace to cover the line… and that’s it!
I keep it in my purse all the time and it’s been really great, none of the jewels have come off the sheet which surprised me as I’ve always assumed they aren’t very durable. Very happily surprised!
Now on to the actual camera! I wanted this to be sweets themed but I didn’t want it to be completely crazy. It also needed to fit back in the case which was a bit of a tight fit to begin with *_*
I played around with the design a bit and decided that this would be perfect to try out using Swarovski‘s for the first time! 
I used a lot of the cabachons, the prestuck pearls (which I removed the stick backs from and glued down) and several colours of crystals. This is what I ended up with after around an hour!
Totally cute but not too crazy!
Like?
I got a request a little while ago from a reader asking for cute ideas to store nail art supplies and nails there is another tutorial coming on this as well but here’s a quick and easy idea for you!
This is one of the boxes I keep my supplies in…
It took me about 2 minutes to cut out the sticky backed felt and cover the box! SUPER EASY.
It needed a little something extra so I added some of the other cute stickers in the pack ^_^
This is completely random but this is the rest of the sheet the stickers came on… all the cutest ones like the little bears weren’t actually cut out as stickers XD I just cut them out and stuck them on anyway!
Last but not least I used some of the other Swarovskicrystals to jazz up a little heart photo thingy that I got aaaages ago. I put in some purikura of James, Susie and I and deco’d around the edges.
Sorry Susie parts of you got covered in jewels ;_;
I really loved using the Swarovski‘s, they certainly do shine a hell of a lot more than acrylics! They are much heavier but I think they are going to be so much more durable too. Love durability!
So now you’ve seen all the fun things I got to make here’s my final review on The Sticker Monster!
Communication-
Every email I sent was replied to very very promptly, in fact I don’t think I ever waited more than about 12hrs for a response about anything. If you live in Malaysia Jolene also has her mobile number online for inquiries and even arranged meet ups if you want to buy a certain number of products. To top that off she is super polite, very friendly and really knows a whole lot about her products. She actually collects and uses them herself so if you have questions about anything she has proper first hand knowledge.
Prices-
All of the prices are in Malaysian currency (RM). When converting to Australia Dollars the prices are really cheap! Things like the sticky fabric sheets and pre-stuck jewel sheets were around half the price of what I’ve seen them for in shops here in Aus. Even when you factor in shipping it’s still much more cost effective.
Quality-
I didn’t find one single piece in the selection I got that I wasn’t happy with the quality. A lot of the things like the jewel sheets and the Swarovski‘s far exceeded my expectations. Even little things like comparing the silver/gold boullions to ones that I had previously ordered from a nailart site in bulk, the Sticker Monster boullions were slightly larger, shinier and more uniform in size than the bulk ones. Couldn’t be more pleased with everything.
Overall-
Considering the prices, exchange rate, ridiculous number of products actually available on the site and the super friendly service… I’m already putting together a mental order list 😀 DO WANT!!!
Let me know if you have suggestions for another decoden tutorial!
