How To Customise An iPad Keyboard Case

by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 25, 2014 | Craft, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial

Lately I’ve decided to take the idea of working on my career more seriously, I want to work hard and be more successful at things I enjoy. Most of those things tend to involve writing so as a present to myself I decided to buy a proper keyboard for my ipad so I could write even while my computer is busy rendering video and things like that. Really I just want a better laptop so I can multi task while editing videos… but that’s much more expensive than a keyboard so this is my interim solution!

Anyway I decided to decorate it so I would remind myself why I’m working so hard: you guys!

This is my end result:

For this tutorial you will need:

iPad keyboard
Drawing/painting/pretty paper you want to cover it with
Glue
Scissors
Clear book covering contact

This is my keyboard:

I wanted the main focus on the back of the iPad to be the coat of arms for the VLB and then on the inside a spring theme.

It wasn’t quite bright enough for me so I decided to jazz it up a bit with some more water colours.

While it was drying I worked on the inside area.

I cut out a piece of a daisy/grass painting I had done earlier and fitted it to the blank part of the keyboard at the top. I used a little bit of glue to hold it down for the next steps. PVA or paper glue is fine for this, it’s really just to stop it sliding around.

Then I covered the area in clear contact.

It was a little hard to cut it so it was snug around the corners but I did my best to keep it smooth and clean.

Now the back! My painting was all dry by this point so I cut it to fit the back of the keyboard without overlapping the curved edges.

I added a thin layer of glue again to hold it in place.

And stuck it down.

Then it was just a matter of covering that with contact too.

I made sure to go smoothly and carefully around the curved edges so there weren’t any creases.

Taadaa!

Spring on the inside and VLB on the outside!

I absolutely love it and every time I see it, it makes me want to get to work on something awesome!

Hope you guys enjoyed and let me know if you give it a try!

Jimmy Make Danishes – Cute Manly Food

by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 20, 2014 | Baking, Cooking-Tutorials, Tutorial

‘Sup ladies! It’s me, Jimmy!

When I was a just a young lad growing up deep in the heart of Texas my mom would buy these 24 packs of danishes from the Auchan Hypermarket, which from my memory was like a European-y Costco. Granted I have sustained quite a few serious head injuries and more electrocutions than I care to/could remember since then, so I may be wrong. The place that she bought them from isn’t really integral to the story, so I’m just going to move it along here before I start ranting about how there should be more buy in bulk places in Australia…which there should be.

Just imagine a bag of 24 of the most delicious assorted fruit danishes you have ever had in your life. Crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, flavours like apple cinnamon, cherry and blueberry drizzled in streams of icing sugar icing and half of them have this soft and creamy cheese filling nestled in between the fruit and pastry. Now image getting to have these fresh from the oven whenever you want for breakfast for 9 years, then you move overseas where they think a danish is a glazed apricot on a tombstone of store bought puff pastry. DISAPPOINTED!!!!!

So regular readers will know that last year Violet and I went to Europe for a work vacation and while we were staying in a little cottage on Lake Tittisee (heeheehee) in Germany they had a literal smorgasbord for breakfast! Violet and I aren’t what you would call early risers so when we got there at 10:30ish most of the food was gone but in one of the baskets there was one little solitary danish, waiting to be experienced. I quickly dove for the basket, elbowing one or two old ladies out of the way and claimed it as my own! Back at the table, my fingers trembled as I brought the pastry to my mouth and then BAM! Memories of my childhood came rushing back to me! Being late for school, watching Angry Beavers Marathons with my little brother, opening presents on Christmas morning! Then, heartbreak, I realised that this was the last one and judging by the fact that they were cleaning up, they wouldn’t be bringing out any more. I let Violet have a bite so she could taste what ambrosia tastes like, but she wasn’t impressed. I’m not going to lie, I thought about leaving her right then and there. We left Germany that day and went back to Switzerland where our breakfasts comprised mainly of cured meats, cheese and yoghurt.

And that brings us to today! Being driven mad by lack of sleep thanks to relentless nightmares of being just out of reach of sexy pastries I decided to take it upon my self to try and make my own! Also for some reason we had fruit in the house and it needed to be eaten before it spoilt.

You will need the following!

About 125-250g of cream cheese, depending on how cheesey you like your danishes
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 egg
1tsp (or capfull) of vanilla extract
Splash of lemon juice (I used lime because I didn’t have lemon and figured citrus is citrus)
1/2 tsp salt

It’s basically a runny version of a cheesecake mixture.

In a kitchen aid, cream together the cream cheese, salt and sugar.

It should look like this:

Then add the egg, lemon juice and vanilla extract and mix together.

Now prepare your fruit. I wanted two kinds of apples, sliced and diced and diced cherries.

For the diced apple, pop the wedges in a food processor.

Done!

Then add some brown sugar, white sugar, flour, lemon juice (I found half a lemon in the fridge, call me Mr. Lucky!) cinnamon and nutmeg to the sliced apple.

I made 4 different types because even if they tasted terrible they sure would look pretty! the photos should be fairly self-explanatory.

Now pipe the cheese mixture in to the centre of your store-bought puff pasty. Time for a mini rant! I see that in ‘merica you can buy all kinds of frozen pastry in all kinds of forms from all kinds of brands. One example that comes to mind is crescent dough which is freaking delicious but very time consuming to make. Here, we have NOTHING!!!! We have 6 sheets of puff pastry, 6 sheets of shortcrust pastry and sometimes pre-made frozen vol-au-vents. THAT’S BALLS!!!! Not only is the selection crap, it tastes like crap too! /rant

Now bake for about 20 minutes at 180ish centigrade! Professional, huh? I’m one of those people who sits in front of the over the whole time something is baking so I can keep an eye on things, so you know, check up on it every now and then.

Tadaa! To answer your question, no, they didn’t taste like home, but they did all get eaten! Mix some confectioners sugar with a little milk and pipe lines and swirls and maybe a giraffe fighting a t-rex on top to sweeten the pastry. You can fancy them up a little more by brushing an egg wash onto the pastry before you pop them in the oven and if you do end up icing the giraffe-dino fight send me a photo because that sounds awesome.

James’ Office Chair Make Over – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 18, 2014 | Craft, Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Storage/Utility-Tutorials, Tutorial

After we moved around the lounge room to the new configuration there was one thing left which bothered me: James’ chair.

I have had a love hate relationship with James’ chairs over the years. He always picks the cheapest crappiest chairs which are terrible for back support and also super ugly, but he claims are super comfy. I mean if they were good for his back then I could understand… But honestly bleh.

So I made this…

From this…

So I sold him on a make over by promising to add a bunch more pillows and arm support so it was *actually* comfortable for him to sit there. Double win!

I tied some old pillows from daiso around the arms, added one to the seat area and one to the back support and held them all in place with old yarn.

I toyed with the idea of coating the arms completely in yarn but I didn’t have enough and the finish wasn’t so great so instead I covered it and the rest of the chair in white stretch fabric and hot glued it down.

I chose green knit fabric for the bulk of the chair so it matched the rest of the house.

I didn’t have enough for the whole chair so I ended up chopping up an old scarf and doing the rest in brown knit. I like it because it kind of looks like a tree.

I fixed the final fabric in place with hot glue as well making sure that all of the edges are covered up.

Bam! New area! I feel like it’s much more open and almost magazine-y! So clean and pretty and nice. And a clean work space means a better frame of mind and more productivity… or that’s what I’m going with anyway 😀

Now if I could only convince James to buy a really nice proper ergonomically chair which would actually be good for his back -_-‘

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Simple Spring Daisy Nail Art Tutorial

by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 13, 2014 | Nail-Art-Tutorials, Nails, Tutorial

Let’s do Spring themed nail art today! I’m thinking of Spring as more of a state of mind rather than a season these days XD

You need:

Light blue base polish
Green polish or acrylic paint
White polish or acrylic paint
Yellow polish or acrylic paint
Clear top coat
Thin brush

Start by painting a light blue base coat.

Once it’s dry begin adding small lines starting at the cuticle in the light green paint. This will be the grass.

Do it over the entire width of the nail so it looks like a little forest!

Now for the daisies. On top of some of the longer grass blades add a white splotch. This will look more like a daisy if you start from the centre and drag your brush outwards several times so it looks a bit like petals.

Repeat a few more times in varying sizes.

Using the yellow paint and add a little dot in the middle of each daisy.

Once it’s completely dry, apply a top coat of clear to the entire nail.

All finished! Perfect for whether it’s actually Spring in your area of the world or if you just wish it was ^_^

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Random Ikea Lamp Hack – Home Sweet Home

by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 11, 2014 | Craft, Home Sweet Home Tutorials, Storage/Utility-Tutorials, Tutorial

Random project… We had an Ikea lamp which was broken and an Ikea tea light lantern which was also a bit broken. So I combined them into one monster lantern…

Before:

The second lamp didn’t work and this one wasn’t getting power properly.

I removed the top of the lamp and glued the lantern in place. I also strengthened the inside so it could withstand the extra weight.

I also added some flowers into the stand because… I don’t know, its me. >_>

With no power supply any more I debated between tea lights or LED fairy lights. The LED won out because they required less cleaning of wax.

So there you go, waste nothing! It looks a little like it’s leading the way to Narnia XD

How To Make A Basic Draped Shirt With No Sewing

by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 9, 2014 | Clothing-Tutorials, Craft, Tutorial

So I’ve been a little bit obsessed with making wrap shirts lately. It’s such a fun thing to experiment with especially because there is pretty much no sewing involved!