Welcome To The VLB
This is totally the year of long term projects! Something that I’ve wanted to do for a few years was put together a monthly email mail out which is an extension of the site. Not just a list of my posts for the month and stuff I’ve done but something which was a little bit more… awesome.
And so The VLB was born!
This is a monthly newsletter for Violet’s Lovely Besties in which you’ll find all kinds of awesomeness. The first issue is going to be sent tomorrow morning so make sure you sign up now to receive it straight to your inbox! I’m feeling positive and I want to share the ideas, tips and inspiration I’ve had.
- Free exclusive downloadable craft tutorials
- Articles and life 101 tips
- Violet’s favourite craft links from around the web
- Great new bloggers you should be following
- Monthly round up of the best bits from VioletLeBeaux.com
- Q&A with Bergamot Bunny
- Discounts and coupons for the store
- Awesome inspiration
- Sneak previews of upcoming projects
- And heaps more!
The welcome email also includes a full list of all the currently downloadable tutorials and desktop backgrounds.
Shop Open! Birthday Sale!
I know you guys have been waiting for ages for the new shop and it’s now finally online! Rather than having several different stores for different items (etsy, spreadshirt etc) I will now be having a centralised store on this site for everything. Yay!
I’m starting with Bergamot stickers and the first set of art prints, as soon as the prototypes arrive here I will be adding Bergamot shirts and charms again. This way will take a little more time and work but I think it’s a better solution for everyone because I have better control over quality and being able to make sure everything is perfect 😀
You can visit the store from now on here.
Tomorrow is my birthday so I’ve decided to kick off with a bang and put everything at a 25% discount for the next 24 hours! Keep in mind that stocks are limited and once they sell out that’s it for this week so get in quickly!
I’ve embedded all of the items below as well to save you all some time!
Bergamot Merchandise:
[product id=”18864″]
Artwork Prints – 6×4″
[products columns=”5″ ids=”18911, 18934, 18935, 18936, 18937″]
Artwork Prints – 7×5″
[products columns=”5″ ids=”18946, 18945, 18944, 18943, 18942″]
Artwork Prints – Sets
[products columns=”5″ ids=”18952, 18953″]
Thank you very much to everyone for your patience as I’ve gotten everything sorted out and I hope you find something you like!
As always requests, bugs, etc are welcome in the comments and see you guys tomorrow!
The coming year…
Holy bajeebus it’s 2013 *_*
When did this happen?? It feels like 2012 was barely a year at all! Even if it didn’t feel very long, 2012 was a really great year for me. There were some pretty terrible parts but I think we had a lot more good than the bad and that’s what counts. This last year will always be remembered as the year we brought Lottie home with us and I don’t think there’s anything better than that!
You’ve probably noticed that there have been a couple of changes here, mostly in the layout. Well really this is just the start of things that I have planned for 2013. I have a really fantastic feeling about this year, I think some massive things are going to happen.
I don’t generally do resolutions as such but there are some things I want from the year and some more changes I’d like to make.
I’d like to start enjoying life more as I’m living it rather than just looking back and thinking how awesome it was later. I’d like to stress less about things. I’d like to try to do one fun thing a day and not live behind my computer screen 100% of the time! I’d like to explore the city I live in and do some traveling.
To put it into an actual list so I feel more accountable for crossing them off, I’d like to:
- Take Lottie to a beach because her reaction would be adorable.
- Paint and draw more because it’s fun not because I have to.
- Do things in general because they’re fun not because I have to.
- Start learning languages again.
- Go strawberry picking at a place which actually has strawberries!
- Spend more quality time with James when we aren’t working.
- Bake more cakes!
- Find a way to get the Bergamot plushies into production even if it’s just locally.
- Continue adding to my Home Sweet Home.
- Move to a different, hopefully bigger apartment.
- Enjoy as much of 2013 as I can without stressing about what’s going to happen later! I want to take evenings and weekends off, I want to learn to work smarter not harder and I want to enjoy life more!
I think those changes will eventually effect you guys here too because while this blog is about crafting and beauty it’s also about my life. My personal tastes and obsessions reflect here, I mean I don’t think I need to remind people when we had almost of month of pompom crafts because I was obsessed! So I guess that this post is just a beginning, it’s the foreword to the next year’s worth of posts, it’s a heads up to change and it’s extremely exciting!
So what can you guys expect this year from me?
- Tutorials! There are lots of new ideas and techniques I want to try out this year and I will be sharing them here as always.
- Videos! Videos are one of my favorite things to make at the moment so I want to incorporate them more here. The format of the videos is going to change a bit this year, rather than having round up posts like we’ve always had, vlogs will being going into the Snapshots posts and tutorials will have their own posts each. This means there will be 2 video posts during the week now instead of one. I think this format will allow me to write more about the videos, keep the tutorials section much more organised and add extra details to the posts including photos, tips and Q&As.
- Hair! This is something I’ve been listening to a lot of feedback about. I understand that it’s not always easy to follow video tutorials for hairstyles so I’ll be redoing some of my old video tutorials as photos and coming up with more new photo tutorials for hairstyles.
- Quality! I think sometimes I get really bogged down into the idea of *having* to post a certain number of things. I always want to do 7 posts a week, 2 video tutorials, vlogs, cuties posts etc plus all of the social media. With that mindset there have been times I’ve found myself last minute trying to put something together and it not being the quality I expect from myself. This year I’m focusing on quality more, I want to take amazing photos and video. I want to put the amount of time that I used to be able to put into writing posts back when I only did 3 a week.
- A little of everything! Like I mentioned earlier, this blog has always been inspired by the things I’m feeling and doing at the time. I have a short attention span and I like to try new things so you can bet that something new and exciting is going to take my fancy this year. Whatever it is, I can’t wait to share it all with you guys 😀
So this all starts today, the new layout is inspiring me to do things. I feel like crossing things off my to do lists. I feel like busting out my watercolours. I feel like settling down with some homemade jam with brie on toast, a cup of tea and crafting!
I’m going to kick the year off tomorrow by showing you guys my completed Home Sweet Home. That’s something I’ve been working on all year and it’s nice that it’s finally come together. I feel inspired living here now and I know I can take the things that I learnt to the next house and beyond.
Anyway, total props if you managed to get through that gigantic wall of text!
tl;dr? This last year rocked but this coming year is going to be even better!
Thank you for a wonderful year!
Just wanted to say thank you for a wonderful year and show you how I made our Christmas cards this year! I guess it’s really more of a thank you than a tutorial because it goes so fast but you can pretty much get the idea!
To make your own here are the steps!
You need:
- Paper
- Scissors
- Photo
- Glue
- Pen
- Ruler
To make the cards:
Fold a piece of paper in half and cut it so that there is even space around the photo. You can trace around the photo so you know where it goes.
Draw an X between the corners.
Cut out the middle section leaving enough of it to be able to fold back and create a frame.
Fold the flaps back to create a frame and glue down.
Get another piece of paper and fold it in half.
Cut it down to the same size.
Sandwich the photo in and glue it all together.
Write a nice message inside and decorate it.
Done!
Puppies Kissing, Braided Bun Hairstyle Tutorial and Etsy Store Update!
It’s a round up day today and I’m feeling so organised 😀
I’ve joined Instagram (finally!) so if you’re on there too feel free to add me, my username is VioletLeBeaux!
I’ve gotten into a routine of posting Vlogs once a week again so here’s last week’s video of some puppies I saw kissing SO CUTE!!
We received a package from PureGirlBlue too and it was AWESOME!
I’ve started feeling a bit more inspired with my make up again so here’s a Morning Make Up featuring some wearable fushia 😀
I had a lot of requests to do a tutorial on this style of bun which is braided upwards through the back of the head. Done and done 😀
The biggest news today is that I’ve finally been able to launch my Deluxe Tutorial Packs for sale. Nothing is going to change on this site, there will still be heaps of free tutorials for you guys so don’t stress out ^_^
Each pack will have a PDF pack with 3 step by step tutorials featuring 1 exclusive one and 2 reworked tutorials centered around a theme. The first theme is “Relaxing” and the tutorials are:
- The 20 Minute Pajamas
- The Recycled Bunny Slipper
- The Kitty Sleep Mask
Click here to visit my Etsy Store and read more about the first Deluxe Tutorial Pack.
And here are some of the preview images to give you an idea what you can expect in each pack ^_^
So there you go, I hope you enjoyed the videos and check out the Deluxe Tutorial Packs if you’re interested. Hope you all had a good weekend and I’ve got a lot of fun posts coming up this week to look forward too including a delicious donut recipe on Friday ^_^
Bergamot Bunny T-Shirts and Competition Winner!
Drum roll please…. The winner of the Bergamot Bunny Book competition is Mereillechan with the entry she left on my youtube video:
Yays im sooo glad you have your friday videos <3
Any how I think it would be really cute and fun if you could some how have little ISpy or Find Bergamot like segment for “Bergamot”(or a weekly post or some thing ^.^) where you hide her in different little silly spots in a big picture and one has to find her, Yes James this way you can be part of the fun with your photography skills 😀 and possibly at the end of the year there could be a ISpy/ Find Bergamot calendar people could purchase.
I picked this one because it was such a unique idea and not something which I would have automatically though of. It sounds like it would be really fun to do as well!
There were a lot of really great entries and honorable mentions go to Ivy Au, Courtney Golding and Camille for the stories they wrote and to Alexis for making me laugh at the idea of a bitchy narcissistic panda XD
With so many awesome entries were does this leave us? Well I want to make as many of them as I can happen! I’ve written a list of all of the suggestions and (as much as I can) I’m going to give as many of them as I can a go.
To begin with, I totally agree with the requests for Bergamot themed shirts!
I’d been looking around for a supplier for a while because I wanted to wear some myself 😀
I finally settled on Spreadshirt. They are located in the US/Europe so because most of you guys are from the US/Europe this will save on shipping for you.
Click here to visit the Bergamot Shirt Store!
I’m opening with just the classic Bergamot design to begin with on 4 different types of shirts (lots of colours!) and as time goes on I’ll be adding more. If there is a specific design you want to see on the shirts just let me know.
Click the image for more information, to see the other colours or to purchase!
I can’t wait for mine to arrive so I can use them in outfit posts 😀 😀 😀
Also I promised I would introduce you guys to Bergamot’s friends soon! There were a lot of suggestions for Bergamot to have a boyfriend and I’m totally one step ahead, I’d been planning him for around 2 months now and I’m just drawing the story of their first meeting.
Make sure you’re following Bergamot’s website to see his debut.
For now, I’ll give you a teaser, his name is Sir Reginald T. Bunnykins mwahaha!