A blog and Youtube channel about a girl and her quest to make everything sparkle. New craft, hair and beauty tutorials every week!
Violet LeBeaux spends most of her time trying to think of ways to make life prettier, posting said ways on her blog and drinking very strong tea. She writes about big hair cute things, girly fashion, beauty finds, sometimes Hime Gyaru fashion (姫ギャル) and crafty tutorials.
She lives with her adorable boyfriend Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
So you’ve probably noticed the lack of craft here lately. It’s come from a combination of having no crafting time and being uninspired.
My life is very heavily scheduled, until this year James and I didn’t take weekend or evenings off and when one thing goes out of whack the rest tends to follow quickly until I feel I’m constantly treading water instead of actually moving forward. And for a while that works, I’ve crossed off so many long term projects from my list this year and I’m making decent progress toward some more, but eventually I just get burned out.
I’ve been running around so much trying to get things done that the house is a mess and when the house is a mess I feel less like doing things. It snowballs until I end up back in front of the computer for 14 hours a day rather than crafting or doing something creative. And if I do have a minute spare all I want to do is procrastinate. I’ve gotten distracted already several times just writing this article >_<
Being in an apartment that isn’t particularly appealing doesn’t inspire me and if I’m not inspired I just don’t want to craft.
So it’s time to do something about that 😀
Welcome to my new series “Violet and Jimmy’s Home Sweet Home” ^_^
We’ve lived in this apartment for almost 2 years now (in fact my birthday is the 2 year anniversary) and in that entire time I’ve never done much to make it ours because we only ever sign a 6 month lease and every six months I think:
Oh well there’s no point getting new furniture, I can’t afford it, I don’t have any time to DIY something that big. We’re only going to be here for another 6 months anyway…
Oh well there’s no point unpacking those boxes, we’re only going to be here for another 6 months anyway…
Oh well there’s no point getting/making nicer things, they probably won’t fit in with my awesome new decorating colour scheme when we move into our dream home and we’re only going to be here for another 6 months anyway…
And after 2 years worth of “we’re only going to be here for another 6 months” I’m at the point that I’m sick of waiting for *someday* and I am more interested in *right now*. Someday is when we’ll finally get that dream apartment but there’s really no reason that I should sit around making excuses to live in a place that doesn’t look the way I want until then. RightNow is a very important step to get to Someday and so it’s time to do something about.
This series is going to be something different. It’s going to be 1 part rambling post like this, 1 part craft tutorials as I go and 1 part art journaling the progress.
It will be on going, I have a whole apartment to make pretty and when we do finally own our first home I will obviously have that too. Hopefully some of you who are in the same boat as I am can relate to this and it will inspire you to stop waiting around and give things a go!
So the first step to changing things is making goals.
Throughout these posts you will see my diary pages which are a combination of pen, water colours and stickers. I don’t have neat hand writing and my style tends to be very chaotic so I will provide transcripts below them with other notes included. My math teacher used to say that clever people always had terrible hand writing because their brains worked faster than their hands could and that’s what I’m sticking to 😉
Also my spelling and grammar sucks so there you go!
So what am I trying to get out of this project?
To make every part of the house pretty without losing functionality -> I don’t think functional and beautiful are mutually exclusive. Our house needs to be practical so I refuse to settle for less function just because something is pretty.
To spend as little money as possible -> I have pretty much no budget for this so I’m probably not going to spend anything unless it comes out of the change jar. (Oh who am I kidding, all THAT money goes to claw machine!)
Regain my creativity and problem solving skills -> Not doing things regularly makes me lazy and I don’t like that.
Replace all ugly things -> Our place is full of mismatched junk that we’ve collected over the years which I want to replace or rework so it’s visually appealing as well.
Practice decorating for our real home -> Use this space to decide on the themes and colours we want for the next place.
Stop procrastinating! -> Self explanatory, stop over thinking things so much and just do them! *she types as she has an article about the Titanic, Realestate.com.au and Youtube open in the other tabs* >_>
Surround ourselves with beauty -> I think if our place is brighter and happier then James and I probably will be too.
Stop waiting and start DOING! -> Well… duh ^_^
Basically I want to go through everything we have and reevaluate whether it should be here. If I can make it better I will but if it’s something that doesn’t fit and has no use it will be de-cluttered!
So what kind of obstacles will I be up against?
Lack of inspiration
Lack of money
Lack of time
Inspiration isn’t something that I can magic up but I think that by having a well kept to do list with a range of small quick projects as well as the bigger ones I can combat that. Money is something I can control to a certain extent and I will work harder at putting some savings together but realistically I’m just going to try to reuse the things I already have in different ways and burn through my craft stash.
Time will probably be the biggest killer here. James and I have been trying to cut back on working after hours so no more nights and weekends which is nice but not particularly realistic. To a certain extent at least, working for yourself means working when there’s work and that means sometimes you have to do late nights or weekends. What I am going to do is make an effort to have at least one evening a week for doing these projects. If possible I will actually do them in the mornings so I can take better quality photos and not have to set up flashes but that will obviously depend on schedules.
I think posting here about it will make me feel a lot more accountable especially for procrastinating because I’ll feel guilty if I don’t follow through XD
Funnily enough I think it also has a bit to do with what we have to watch or do in the evenings. I always do my best craft when we’re watching great TV or playing great games but nothing is really grabbing my attention at the moment. I’ve re-watched most of my favorites fairly recently and James is playing Grand Turismo 5 which is one of the most boring games of all time to watch. Let me know if you have any good recommendations!
So all in all I’m feeling pretty good about this! I’m looking forward to doing some of the projects I’ve been wanting to tackle for years and I’m really looking forward to having and awesome looking apartment which will make me feel great until we can buy our first place.
Hopefully it will be a good start to make bigger changes and better things for the future and I hope you all enjoy it too ^_^
Super props if you actually read all of that, I think this is the most I’ve written here in months… so that’s a good start *_*
A blog and Youtube channel about a girl and her quest to make everything sparkle. New craft, hair and beauty tutorials every week!
Violet LeBeaux spends most of her time trying to think of ways to make life prettier, posting said ways on her blog and drinking very strong tea. She writes about big hair cute things, girly fashion, beauty finds, sometimes Hime Gyaru fashion (姫ギャル) and crafty tutorials.
She lives with her adorable boyfriend Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
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Music: Garageband unless otherwise credited
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Paperclay bunny magnet instructions.
Today I’ll show you how to make Bergamot Bunnies out of paper clay.
This is the paper clay I’m using.
Take a small piece of clay and make a ball.
Flatten slightly and press a thumb into the top.
This is the body.
Make a small ball of clay and smoosh one side.
Attach to one side at the bottom as a foot.
Repeat on the other side.
Make 2 long sausages and flatten them for ears.
Stick the bottoms together and flatten them a little more.
For the head, flatten a large ball into a slight oval.
Attach the head to the body with a little water.
Do the same with the ears.
Make sure they’re off to one side!
Smooth the back over completely.
Make 2 tiny balls, squish side and apply as arms.
To smooth, just wipe with a little water on your finger.
Now you have a blank bunny!
Leave it to dry completely.
When it’s dry, paint hearts in the ears.
I used water colours with a dry brush for this.
Add the nose, mouth and “V” on the foot.
Use a wet brush for a soft blush.
Then the eyes, watercolour was too hard for this.
So I used a pen instead.
To finish her, I added a small clay bow.
Lastly add a magnet strip to the back using a glue gun.
All finished! Cute little Bergamots.
So there you have it.
Bergamot paper clay magnets are really simple to make and you can use the same general idea to make pretty much any shape.
I hope you enjoy the video and found it useful.
Thanks so much for watching!
See the full post here for more information: https://violetlebeaux.com/2012/01/even-easier-usamimi-tutorial/
And here’s another post I did with another method: https://violetlebeaux.com/2010/04/tutorial-making-a-bunny-hair-scarf/
Subscribe to my channel: http://bit.ly/pfjebH
Subscribe to my Vlog channel: http://bit.ly/xwQ9w3
Blog: http://bit.ly/qIKumk
Mobile blog: http://bit.ly/oF86Yz
Twitter: http://bit.ly/onCld1
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/pdZ8B5
A blog and Youtube channel about a girl and her quest to make everything sparkle. New craft, hair and beauty tutorials every week!
Violet LeBeaux spends most of her time trying to think of ways to make life prettier, posting said ways on her blog and drinking very strong tea. She writes about big hair cute things, girly fashion, beauty finds, sometimes Hime Gyaru fashion (姫ギャル) and crafty tutorials.
She lives with her adorable boyfriend Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Music: Garageband unless otherwise credited
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Usamimi Sewing Instructions
Today I’m sewing a simple usamimi headband!
Gather your materials.
Cut a long rectangle of fabric and put the ends together.
Fold in half length-wise.
Snip the end into a rounded point like this.
Unfolded it should look something like this.
Unfold and then fold in half to form a big sausage.
Thread a needle and start stitching at one point.
Running stitch down the side.
It can take a while to get to the other side.
Leave a small gap when you reach the other end and tie off.
Turn the whole thing inside out through the end gap.
Flatten it out and you should have something like this.
Unwind a piece of wire twice as long as the tube.
Fold it in half, twist together then fold the ends into loops.
Thread the wire into the tube.
Then stitch up the gap.
Tie off the end.
All done!
Taadaa!
Cure and it holds itself up with the wire, the perfect bunny headband.
And that’s it! You can whip one of these up in a couple of minutes once you get the hang of it and it’s even quicker on a sewing machine.
Check out the link in the description for a photo version of the tutorial on my blog.
Hope you all enjoyed the video and good luck if you give it a try yourself.
Thanks so much for watching, bye!
I realised over my crafting holiday that for some reason I’ve amassed a lot of coloured wire in my stash. No freaking clue how it got there but I figured if it’s there I might as well use it!
So the first thing I made was a little flower hair clip. It’s pretty crazy looking but I really like it.
I used:
Wire in various colours
Bobby pin
Originally I was planning to make this into a magnet but I went with hair clip instead. You could really put whatever backing on that you want though!
I did the flower in two sections. The middle out of yellow and the outside out of red. For the inside I made loops of wire…Then twisted them leaving the end as a circle.
I made a bunch of them like this…
Done! Next the red section. I wrapped the red wire around my fingers…
Then used some pliers to twist the ends together.
It ended up like a tear drop shape.
I flared the end loops out to form petals.
After making a second one I placed them on top of each other with the twisted ends in the middle.
To make the flower a bit fuller I wrapped the wire around my fingers again and twisted in the middle.
I flared it out and then placed it on top of the first red parts. I tied them all together with more wire and then added the yellow part in the middle.
Everything was held together with wire and then I inserted the bobbypin and wrapped it in with more wire.
Done!
You could make so many variations on this style.
I could really picture a gigantic version of this perched on top of a big bun, pinup style!
Now to think of what to make with the rest of the wire!
This is a portrait of my friend Vanessa from Nessbow. Check out her channel below, she’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met! Thanks for letting me paint you Vanessa!
This is a new kind of video I’m trying out: art! Over the holidays I got back into watercolours after several years or not painting at all. I am definitely very out of practice with my painting but I would love to continue this series so I can improve more.
Subscribe to my channel: http://bit.ly/pfjebH
Subscribe to my Vlog channel: http://bit.ly/xwQ9w3
Blog: http://bit.ly/qIKumk
Mobile blog: http://bit.ly/oF86Yz
Twitter: http://bit.ly/onCld1
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/pdZ8B5
A blog and Youtube channel about a girl and her quest to make everything sparkle. New craft, hair and beauty tutorials every week!
Violet LeBeaux spends most of her time trying to think of ways to make life prettier, posting said ways on her blog and drinking very strong tea. She writes about big hair cute things, girly fashion, beauty finds, sometimes Hime Gyaru fashion (姫ギャル) and crafty tutorials.
She lives with her adorable boyfriend Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Music: Garageband unless otherwise credited
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Speed painting… Nessbow!
Today I’m painting Nessbow!
Another in my blogger speed painting series.
I started by machine a basic outline in sepia.
Ness writes about fashion and beauty.
Then I did a basic wash of the skin.
And a blue wash on the dress.
I filled in the other basic colours on the hair and flowers.
She also writes about self esteem and being yourself.
I find her to be a really inspiring person both in fashion sense and her outlook on life.
She’s always so positive and full fo great ideas.
More hair details.
Ness has written ebooks and podcasts about developing personal style.
A patchy light purple background.
Her outfit posts are a source of awesome creativity too.
Shadows on the skin and some more definition.
Ness and her partner Ross love comics so I wanted to catch that style!
The comic style of drawing is actually one of my favorites.
And this is one of the first times I’ve translated it into a full painting.
Now adding some detail to the body shot.
She also has an etsy store where she sells her super cute fashion.
This look is quite cartoonish so I outlined everything in thick black,
Oh and her Youtube channel has vlogs and tutorials too!
Clearly she’s a very busy girl.
I have a unique insight because she has been one of my window shopping buddies since moving here!
She just moved away though so I don’t think we’ll be able to window shop for a while.
Hopefully she can come visit again soon!
Thick purple stripes for the background and it’s almost done!
Lastly I touched up a few areas with a pen.
I’ve linked everything in the description so go check NessBow out!
Done!
Hope you enjoyed seeing my version of Nessbow, make sure you check out her links in the description!
The next in my series will be none other than James!
Thanks so much for watching!
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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