I have a couple of little announcements before the main post on setting up your blogging space!
Firstly I’ve done an interview with the lovely Hollie from Mermaid’s Closet click here if you’d like to have a look 🙂
Secondly, I’ve been planning on doing an FAQ about Hime Gyaru styles for a while now and I’ve actually gotten around to starting to write it ^_^ So if there are any questions you have about my style or Hime Gyaru in general I’d love to hear them. You can put them in the comments or go to my contact page if you’d like to do it more privately 🙂
Lastly I’m going away for a few days to the beach for New Years (I hope my new swim suit arrives today or else that’s going to suck!)… anyway that means I’ll probably be missing Art Friday this week but I’m taking a sketch book so I might post something on Sat. I’ve just gotten WordPress on my phone so I might test it out and try to post some snap shots 😀
But back to the important bits…
I’ve had a lot of questions about the mechanics of blogging lately so I’ve decided to make a series of posts with tips on setting up a productive blogging space ^_^
Part 3- Putting it all together and what else do you need?
Well isn’t that the just longest title in the universe? Very important though. One quick disclaimer, this isn’t actually my blogging space at the moment. Because we’re living in a room at James’ parent’s place for a few months to save for our mortgage deposit, my current blogging place is in bed with a tray table holding my lap top… and it sucks. James has a big computer so he gets the desk in our room, nuts to him I want the desk! In our new house when I’ve stolen my desk back this is how I’ll be setting it up 😀 Oooow it’s like you’re seeing into the future! *cool sci fi music*
So this is *my* blogging space:
I’ll go through it bit by bit but the most important part of the whole thing is the laptop! You can’t blog without a computer ^_^ My laptop of choice is a big Mac Book Pro with lots of useful programs. You can see my pink twitter page on the screen heehee! If at all possible you should have a desk and a really comfy chair with lots of back and neck support. When you spend a large amount of time in front of a computer screen you really need to have a supportive chair which doesn’t hurt your back! Trust me, blogging in bed is not as comfy as it sounds.
From the picture below you can see that I’ve set up my inspiration board up right in front of the window. This way I can see outside (natural light is really important fr your eyes too) but I have lots of things to inspire me.
Here is a close up of the right side of my desk. Here is a list of what’s there:
-Decorated mirror (to check I look cute before photos)
-Wacom graphics tablet (for work and to draw all the cute graphics for my blog)
-Nail up magazine(INSPIRATION! God I love this mag so much but on any given day it could be replaced with some other book or mag. Inspiration is so important!)
-Cake eyelash holder, ok see the little thing that looks like a cake on my graphics tablet? It’s actually a false eyelash holder I made. I’m going to do a tutorial soon, but the point it that I keep recent or current projects close by so I can remember what I’m talking about when I write up the tutorials. That an false eyelashes are awesome 😀
-Water bottle/soft drink (Always keep yourself well hydrated, when you’re using a computer time can run away from you and all of a sudden you haven’t had a drink in 7 hours >_< Very important!)
And for the right side:
-My lamp (For when it’s night time or I’m decorating something small and need extra light)
-Cute headphones (For when you want to watch videos and it’s like 2am and you don’t want to wake up your boyfriend who is asleep right next to you.)
-Video Camera, case and mini tripod (Very important for video blogging obviously…)
-Phone (Important for taking calls from clients and also for quick photos etc)
-Kinder Chocolate or Bueno (Snacks! Chocolaty delicious snacks! Very, very important to remember to eat. Snacks are fantastic, especially Bueno shaped snacks. Damn would Bueno hurry up and sponsor me? I give them enough advertising!)
Not pictured here but also important:
-Reliable camera. I use my phone and my video camera when James doesn’t have his awesome DSLR handy.
-Boyfriend who’s good with his fancy DSLR camera to take photos for you
Having lots of power points around your area is handy too so you can plug everything in.
I think colour and decoration are very important to putting me in a good mood for blogging. I find pink and other pastel colours make me happy so I’ve decorated accordingly. You really don’t need to spend much money on decorating, the table cloth is just a scrap of fabric ^_^
So there you go! That’s the series, I hope you guys found that a bit helpful. If you have any questions I’d be happy to answer them, if there are lots I might even do a reader Q&A post on setting up your blogging space in general. 🙂
I’ve had a lot of questions about the mechanics of blogging lately so I’ve decided to make a series of posts with tips on setting up a your blogging space ^_^
Before I get into today’s post I just want to let you all know that I’ve started a second Twitter account called Violet’s Cuties which will basically be me posting cute things that I’ve found along my internet travels. I’ll be posting pretty much anything I think is adorable from clothes to puppies to Hello Kitty shaped sushi makers. Click here to follow me if you’re interested 🙂
Ok so now you’ve got an inspiration board to look at, you are going to need a few other things to reach optimum blogging potential 😛 I’ll show you the rest in the next post but today we’ll focus on 2 very important parts: 1. A cute mirror and 2. a really good, cute light source.
Let’s start with the mirror. You’re probably wondering why you need a mirror, well you want to look good for all the photos you’re going to be posting right? Well having one next in your blogging space is very handy when you’re doing a last minute post or twittering photos. Now you won’t have the problem of taking 109281 photos trying to get your hair right etc. Also useful for taking self portrait photos so you can see if you are in frame and watching tv in the reflection if your desk doesn’t face it!
Materials:
Glue gun
Cheap mirror (mine was $3 from a discount store)
2 kinds of lace
Ribbon is optional
My mirror has a thin plastic frame around it so I’m going to glue to that but if yours doesn’t then just glue straight to the glass. Ok starting with one end of your lace (the rufflier the better in my opinion) put a spot of glue in the middle of the bottom edge of the mirror frame. Don’t start at the corners otherwise you will have one corner that is slightly different from the others… and that would bother me.
Slowly continue gluing the lace until you reach a corner, glue right up to the edge like the picture below.
Now put a little dot of glue on top of the lace right on the corner.
While it’s still wet fold the lace over so it forms a right angle, it should look like below. Please be very careful when you do this, the glue is very hot and if you touch it it will burn you!
Keep going until you’ve done every side!
Now if you want you could leave it like this but I like over the top things so I want more lace! Flat lace works best for the next step. With this part it’s best to start at the corner because the pattern in the lace makes it easy to hide corners. Before deciding to start in the middle/corner check your own lace and see how it looks as some work better than others. You can use ribbon for this step if you prefer or put a strip of ribbon at the bottom etc. What are you waiting for? Be creative and get gluing!
Aaaaaand you’re done!
Time to test it out 😛
Now part 2 of this! Decorating a lamp!
This is what I ended up with:
Lighting is super important plain and simple. If you don’t have good lighting you can ruin your eyes trying to squint and read tiny fonts online. When you look for a lamp (as well as being cute) you should look for something with an easily replaceable bulb, variable brightnesses and the ability to adjust which way it’s facing. Being so adjustable means you can not only use it for reading online but also for different lighting effects in photos. A while ago I was sent this lamp from Buyster which was exactly what I was looking for (being very adjustable etc) but it was quite plain. So It was time to start decorating!
Materials:
Lace
Ribbon bows
Diamantes in various sizes
Fake flowers
Epoxy glue (make sure you check the packet for what temperature the glue is stable until as lamps can get very hot when left on for a long period of time)
Before you start test how hot your lamp gets when left on for a long time, if it get very hot in some places it’s best not to decorate there.
I decided to stick to a flowery theme and not go too over the top because James wanted to use the lamp too XD First roughly lay out what you want to do with your lamp, using epoxy glue means you only get one shot at the final product because once it’s stuck it’s not going anywhere. I decided to put lace around the bottom of the lamp.
After gluing my lace I added some large pink diamantes and pre-made ribbon bows.
Using a match stick with some old blue tack I dipped the back of each in glue and placed them. Be careful to hold them in place for a few minutes otherwise the glue will just run off and you’ll have a bunch of diamantes all over your lace.
I decided to cover where the neck and base meet with flowers. Because this part bends it’s not a good idea to use glue in this area so instead it’s better to thread a needle and sew the flowers in a circle around it.
Taadaa flowers…
As a bit of an after thought I added some diamantes to the top part. This part gets *very* hot if you leave it on for a while so my original idea of turning it into a gigantic hungry face of diamantes went out the window.
And there you have it, finished lamp! If you want to make one exactly like mine you can get this kind of lamp here.
Hope this was kind of helpful and stay tuned next time for Part 3- Putting it all together and what else do you need?
As always let me know if you have any tips for setting up your blogging space!
Hello, today I have a tutorial on deco headphones!
Wow I can’t believe it’s already the last day of my super awesome week of tutorials! It feels like I’ve been at my new address for much longer and I’m loving it!
I’ve been promising a deco tutorial for ages, it was going to be my laptop but I decided to go with a smaller design to start off some of you guys that are beginners 🙂
The fun part about this tutorial is that you can win the end product of deco headphones, but more on that later!
So first you need some headphones! I bought these ones to do, they are just fairly standard ear buds, the only thing special about them is that the coloured outside bit clips on and you can change colour… cool idea but they only included one of each colour so you can’t have a matching set >_< I didn’t even notice until I got home!
Apologies that these photos are a little dark, James was out when I did it so I didn’t have his lighting/camera expertise!
The deco technique I’ll be showing you today is called paving.
I decided to make one headphone pink and one blue so I attached the corresponding colour clip.
Gather all of your materials and decorations together. I suggest that you lay down some paper towel or tissues to work on so you can see everything easily and you don’t get your work surface all glue-y.
The type of glue I am using is called “Epoxy”, it comes in 2 tubes one is resin and one is hardener. There are other types of glue available for deco but epoxy is the strongest and most hard wearing, if you use a decent amount your jewels won’t be going anywhere! Epoxy is good for rigid surfaces (like plastic), it is not good for things that need to bend (like fabric). It comes in different formulas which take different lengths of time to dry, for a project like this use the 5min one. Also unlike some other glues it doesn’t smell bad so you won’t pass out from the fumes ^_^
We need to start with the largest items we’re going to glue. That’s an important rule of paving deco, put the big pieces in and then fill the gaps with everything else.
So squeeze out an even amount of glue from each tube onto a piece of plastic. I just used the packet that some of my diamantes came in.
Using an orange stick mix the two bubbles of glue together. Make sure the consistency is even and it’s mixed well.
I’m going to put a bow on my pink headphone first so using the orange stick I apply a little glue to the back of the bow and also to the headphone where it’s going.
Hold it in place until the glue becomes tacky then allow it to dry completely.
Repeat the process on the other side. I decided to use a bead shaped like a heart on this one. Apply the glue…
Hold the jewel in place.
For paving you need a lot of jewels in different sizes. Rather than buying 1000 of each size if you are doing a small project like this check the scrapbooking section of your local craft store for pre-stuck designs like the photo below. It has many different sizes.
Because they already have a sticky backing on them, they’re fairly useless to glue, you’ll find that if you use the provided sticky back they will eventually slide off your item or if you glue them with the backing on they will still fall off because the glue isn’t touching the actual jewel. So you need to gently pull the sticky backing off… I stick it to my finger and use my nail to pry them free.
And you should be left with this:
Now for this project you need some larger coloured diamantes too..
To pick up the diamantes one by one I find the easiest way is using a match stick with a piece of blutac on the end. New blutac is too sticky so roll it on carpet or fabric first so it picks up some dust and isn’t as sticky ^_^ Other people I know use tweezers but I find that awkward.
Starting with the pink bud add glue to a small strip down the back.
Starting with the largest jewels again place a line of 3mm pink diamantes straight down the back.
While the glue around it is still wet fill in around the edges with tiny clear diamantes. The key to this looking good is to try to fill in every single little gap as much as you can. Wait for it to dry before continuing.
Once the back is dry continue on the side,place a row of large pink diamantes and fill in around it with clear. It’s kind of like making a mosaic, trying to find the right gems to fit the right spot.
When that side is dry continue around to the other side until the jewels meet in the middle, the entire thing should be covered. When you’re done it should look a little like this:
Now let’s start on the other side! The principle is the same, but this time use blue jewels instead of pink ^_^
Do the sides first and then keep going until the jewels meet in the middle.
Once everything is completely dry it’s time to tackle that last little white bit where the cord comes from…
Holding it by the ear piece cover that in clear diamantes.
So then leave it to dry! If you think it needs it, you can give the entire jeweled area a clear top coat. I don’t generally do it because if you are using acrylic jewels it can melt the top layer and make the facets of the jewel less obvious. If you decide to top coat then go with a quick dry clear nail polish. This is what you end up with when you’re done…
Haha you can tell that James can home and took these pictures because they’re so arty!
I think pastel blue and pink look so cute together ^_^
You can see the paving a little more clearly here…
I hope you enjoyed this and it helped! If you have any questions feel free to ask and I’ll do my best to answer 🙂
I’ve had a lot of questions about the mechanics of blogging lately so I’ve decided to make a series of posts with tips on setting up your blogging space ^_^
-An old cork board, I stole mine from James 😀 -Enough cute fabric to cover it -Lots of ribbon -Bows -Lots of different kinds of lace -Old brand bags (you know the ones that Lolita brands give out with cute designs?) -Glue gun -White paint -Scissors -Orange stick (optional)
So first thing’s first, gather all of your materials..
Cut out a rectangle of fabric big enough to cover the whole thing.
Take it outside and paint the frame white. If you use white acrylic like I did, you’ll probably need a couple of coats. Make sure it’s completely dry before you go on to the next step…
Now there are two ways to do this next step depending on how you plan on decorating the frame part. What you want to do is cover the cork part of the board with your fabric. If you think you’re going to cover the edge with lace the the easiest way is just to hot glue it in place along the edge. If you think that this part will be visible then grab your orange stick and start poking the fabric into the frame. It is probably quite a tight fit but if you use the pointy end of the stick you should be able to force your way around the edges.
You should end up with something like this…
Now get your ribbon and mark out diagonal point on the frame, make sure they are all even, use a ruler if you have to because if you’re anything like me, having uneven ribbons at the end will annoy you every time you look at it!
Do the same thing in the other direction. You should use your glue gun to stick each end to the edge of the fabric and poke the edges under.
Now get a bunch of little ribbon bows!
Glue them where the ribbons overlap and glue that point to the fabric too. Basically you create a kind of grid ^_^
Now time for lace 😀
It’s a good idea to lay out your lace before you glue it to make sure that you have enough and it look good. I decided to use ruffled cotton lace on the inside edge because it reminded me of a pretty shop window.
Now let’s fill it with things that inspire us! You know all of the plastic bags you get when you make a purchase from a Lolita brand, I’ve always thought that the designs were too pretty to throw away but I could never think of something to do with them. Until now I just stored them in a cupboard but that just seems like a waste!
So get all of your pretty bags and cut out the designs! You can find cute designs in the strangest places, this one was from some underwear store but it had flowers and actually said “Lolita” on it. I don’t know what your chances are for finding one that says “Hime Gyaru” though XD
You can decorate the bits you cut out too, I added some diamantes 😀
Now pop them in your frame! You can see here that when I was doing this I forgot to glue all the bows to the fabric, this is a problem because when you hang it up there is nothing to keep the pictures up! I fixed it up later so you can see the completely finished version in part 3 ^_^
So there you have it!
There will be lots more pictures in the next post of this series so check back again for the next installment and let me know if you all have any tips for setting up your blogging space!
Today’s post is all about Christmas decorating on a budget, it’s so much fun finding new ways to make things pretty without spending a fortune ^_^
It’s getting quite close to Christmas now and I still haven’t bought any gifts! I think all the uni and school students are on holidays and the shops are packed!
I’m not huge on Christmas, to be honest if I didn’t have family obligations I probably wouldn’t celebrate it… but it is fun to decorate things and I don’t exactly say no to the presents XD
But the problem this year is that with saving for our own house I am on a super strict budget and decorating isn’t really a part of that.
All of my decorations are packed up, the only thing I could find was my tree…
What to do? What to do? Time to improvise!
Get some fabric scraps…
And cover that ugly plastic base!
Much better 😀
Hmm…
Where can I find supplies? I know! The bathroom! It’s time to raid my jewelery supplies and hair accessories 😀
Perfect for decorating: bracelets, necklaces, hair roses and more pearls!
And a gigantic Angelic Pretty hair bow!
Add the bow to the base…
Take some of your pearls and start clipping them from branch to branch.
Add more and more necklaces and then bracelets to the other branches.
Keep adding until you run out of jewelery!
If you have hair roses, clip them to the ends of the branches so they sit on the ends like they are growing out of the tree ^_^
Almost finished but…
The finishing touch… it needs a star!
Add a hair bow and you’re done!
Didn’t cost a cent and all of the pretty jewelery you’ve been collecting for years is displayed beautifully for the holidays.
Now if you want it to be even more pretty and you have some shiny beads (or a couple of dollars to buy these ones from Borders) then you can add even more…
I love these jewels, I think once Christmas is over I’ll make a bracelet with them!
I also found some pink baubles at a discount store for $2.
After lots of decorating it all comes together in the end…
Voila!
Of course it will look different depending on what kind of jewelery you have but the possibilities are endless 🙂
And it’s a fun way to spend an afternoon, especially if you can do it with someone you love like a very handsome photographer!
Do you all have special holiday traditions?
Happy holidays everyone! Let me know if you have any tips for christmas decorating on a budget!
Yes it’s seriously epic! Those of you with dial up might want to not continue because there are around 50 photos! Trust me though, it’s totally worth it because the end result is both pretty and delicious!
So here’s roughly what you need for epic cake:
-3 standard cake mix bags (I know cheating :P) If you are in Australia get the Home Brand butter cake because it is AWESOME and it’s only 60c per bag. -Eggs -Milk -Butter Milk -Fondant icing -Ingredients for royal icing (check this recipe it’s great) -Milo (or just plain old chocolate powder if you’re not in Aus) -Red and green food dye
Gather your ingredients.
Preheat your oven following the instructions on your packet mix.
Now it’s time to make the cake mix 😀 Depending on your cake mix the ingredients might be different but this is how I do it… Packet mix in the bowl!
This cake requires 3 different layers, 2 of plain butter cake and 1 of my version of red velvet cake. We’ll make the red velvet version first.
Add an egg! Eggs look so gross XD
Add in the butter milk, you should use however much milk the packet mix says to, mine said 3/4 of a cup. For the other layers you should use plain milk.
Mix it all together
And then beat it to death! It should be nice and fluffy ^_^
Once it’s fluffy add 3 table spoons of Milo and beat it in.
Now add some red food colouring, this is why it’s called red velvet cake and it makes for a really pretty effect when it’s finished.
Pour it out into your cake tin, I use a silicone one because it’s easy to get the cake out of.
Put it in the oven until it’s cooked all through 😀
Turn it out onto a rack to cool and make the other 2 layers.
The other two layers should not have milo, food colouring or butter milk in them. They should just be plain old butter cake following the directions.
If your cake breaks when you turn it out, just use some icing and glue it back together 🙂
Once your 3 layers have all cooled down it’s time to cut the tops off them. The reason you cut the top off is so you can get a nice flat cake and it doesn’t look like a gigantic lump on top ^_^ It’s much easier to ice a flat cake! So get a knife and poke it in the side towards the middle and start working your way around. Keep going until you’ve done the full circle. Use the knife to lift the top off (and eat it because by now you’ve spent forever staring at cakes bloody baking and you’re probably hungry).
Once you have 3 flat layers get some icing (I’m using Betty Crocker) and cover the top of the red layer/
Once it’s covered use the plate you had it on to flip it onto one of the plain layers.
Cover the top of the red one again and flip the last layer on to it. This is what you should end up with!
Cover the entire thing with icing ^_^
One for the cake, one for the cook!
Now get your fondant icing and roll it on the bench top. If it’s too hard pop it in the microwave for 10 seconds, if it’s too sticky dust it with icing sugar. Once you’ve rolled it out, drape it over the whole cake. It should end up something like this… You can see that I’ve repaired a crack by putting water on my finger and rubbing it. It’s going to be covered in icing so no one will ever notice!
Now it’s time to decorate! Make some royal icing in the colour of your choice, mine is pink! Put it into a piping bag and start decorating! Ok mine isn’t very even but this was my first time using a piping bag so it’s ok!
I tried to make it very decorative, there is a big heart on top, scalloping on the outside and lots of little bumpy bits. Whatever you do as long as you put effort in everyone will enjoy it!
Now put it in the fridge to cool and it’s time to learn how to make icing roses 😀 Grab some fondant icing and colour it pink with food dye. You do this by putting a tiny amount on and kneading it until it’s pink. Make sure to do this on a surface that you can clean easily, food dye will stick to EVERYTHING. Maybe wear gloves, look at my hands, they’re all red XD
So let’s start making a rose! Pinch off a little bit of icing and roll it in a ball.
With your finger squish one side of the ball…
Pick it up and roll the squished end in on itself like the photo below. You should make a bunch more squished balls, these are the petals.
Roll the second petal onto the first but on the opposite side like below:
Keep making petals and placing them around the part you’ve already made. You should over lap the next petal slightly with the one you’ve just done.
As you go you should use your finger to push the petals out a bit.
Once you think you have enough petals roll the bottom of the rose together with your fingers so it’s a bit rounded.
Make a bunch of them 😀 This is what you should end up with!
Now bring out your cake from the fridge. Mix up a bit of royal icing and colour it green.
I put a bunch of green icing in the middle of the heart and placed the flowers on top.
I make a lot of flowers in different sizes so….
…I can shape them into a heart too!
Yay! Finished 😀
NOM NOM NOM!
Delicious cake…
I think the flowers really make the cake… and they are delicious too ^_^
And the best bit… When you cut it open it looks even prettier!
How pretty is it? And the red velvet is delicious!
Now serve with thickened cream…
And enjoy!
So there you have it, it’s delicious! What do you guys think? What’s your favorite type of cake? Let me know if you make your own epic cake!
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.
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