by VioletLeBeaux | Feb 23, 2012 | Craft, Shoe-Tutorials, Tutorial
Last week’s big week is stretching into a big couple of weeks, I think I’ll need a holiday to get over it all 😉
Very important news first for readers who follow my posts via Google Friend Connect.
Google will no longer be offering the friend connect service to blogs hosted outside of Blogger. Basically sucks to everyone who has built a community and the readers who enjoy reading a variety of sites. So around next week my updates will no longer appear in your Friend Connect Feed >_<
If you still want to receive my updates you have a lot of other options to continue reading so here’s a handy list to make the transition as easy as possible:
So that’s it, if you want to continue following give one of those options a try or if you have any suggestions just let me know! I’ll be sending a reminder message via the GFC app later in the week.
Secondly….
The site will most likely be down this weekend and it’s going through some major back end maintenance. I will post the times and updates during on my Facebook page so follow there to keep up to date.
Thirdly…
Anyone have any awesome PS3 games they can recommend me? We’ve gone through all of ours and I totally need something to de-stress to at night!
On to something a bit more interesting…
Another super quick but effective craft for gifting today: monogrammed slippers 😀
I made these ones for James’ Mum ^_^
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It takes about 10 minutes to do so these are awesome for last minute gifts too!Buy some slippers, I happened to find these cute one at Target and while they were super cute as-is I wanted to make them a bit more personal. Draw your letters on some felt.
And cut them out.
Attach with hot glue or by stitching. I chose hot glue because I was pressed for time.
DONE!
Seriously that’s it…
Completely adorable and you could customise the idea a lot depending on the kind of slippers you were starting with. It’s quite cost effective too because you can get slippers similar to these ones at junk stores or places like Daiso for under $5.
Now I want to do some for me! I bought some super puffy Mario mushroom slippers in the Boxing Day sales so I really want to make them cuter 😀 |
by VioletLeBeaux | Feb 20, 2012 | Nail-Art-Tutorials, Tutorial, Video-Tutorials, Violet Vision Videos
A quick and simple nail art tutorial on making horror inspired blood dripped nails. These look even better if you cut them into points!
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Music: Garageband .
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Shop: http://bit.ly/NknExz
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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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Halloween Horror Styled Dripping Blood Nail Art Instructions
Today’s tutorial is a little on the evil side… blood dripped nails!
To begin, paint a base colour and allow to dry.
I used white for maximum effect.
Load your brush quite heavily with red.
It should have enough polish to form a bubble on the bottom of the brush.
Gently touch the bubble of the polish to the nail around half way down, lift slightly and drag to the tip.
Repeat next to the first stroke but only half way as far.
By pressing at the end and dragging lightly up it will form a nice dripping shape.
Just make sure you have enough polish on the brush.
Repeat with an even longer drip next and then a ship one to finish that side of the nail.
Reload your brush with polish regularly.
Make a long drop on the side and then a short one to join it all together.
Done!
As long as you make the strokes all different lengths you’ll end up with pretty realistic drips.
Next nail.
Once you get quick enough you can do all of the long strokes at once and then just fill the short ones in after.
Simple once you get the hang of it!
Finish by painting the tips to match and top coat if you like.
Very creepy.
I hope this was a useful video, please check out the blog post linked in the description for more information and tutorials.
Thanks so much for watching.
Bye!
by VioletLeBeaux | Feb 12, 2012 | Craft, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial
Another very simple paper clay flower tutorial today. This one plays up with one of my favorite things about paper clay: it’s paper-ish tearing ability!
The end result is something along these lines with very ragged deconstructed edges.
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This is the paper clay that I’m using, I want to try making my own but I found this for $3.50 at Tokuya the other day. So start with a ball of clay.
Roll it out on a flat surface.
Tear off long strips of clay that are around 1-2cm wide. You’ll see that the clay has really ragged edges like roughly torn paper.
Strips:
Start by rolling an edge of one of the torn strips.
Continue rolling around so it forms the shape of a flower. I found that it felted the shape to pleat the strip every few cm because that flares out the “petals” a bit more. As you go around you might want to wet the strips slightly so they stick better and if you want to you can roll the bottom end between your fingers so it forms a stem.
All finished!
So there’s another variation on a regular rose ^_^ I think this one is more like a carnation. |
by VioletLeBeaux | Feb 10, 2012 | Baking, Cooking-Tutorials, Tutorial
Ah budget food, I know thee well. The problem with budget food it that is always seems to save on money by taking a long time to prepare and that’s not something I’m prepared to compromise on often. James is awesome at cooking and he enjoys taking time to make really complicated recipes… I do not XD I like baking but cooking because I *have* to is not something I’m good at. So James does pretty much all of the cooking in our house and I make desserts 😀
So in the spirit of my hatred of wasted time and money I present the “James Can’t Be Bothered Cooking So Let’s Have Cheap Easy Pasta” recipe…
Also fair warning that I like my food with a lot of strong flavor 😉
You need:
- Pasta (my favorite is fettuccine) – around $0.69 a pack if you get the home brand one
- Tomato paste – around $1.10 a bottle if you get the home brand
- Pre made pesto – around $4 a bottle
- Parmesan cheese – around $2
- Mozzarella, pre-shredded – around $5 (optional)
- Frozen or fresh veges (optional)
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Cook the pasta, for ultimate laziness points use one of those microwave pasta box things. I got mine at a junk store for $2 and it is AWESOME. Add cooked pasta to a bowl.
Add a spoon of tomato paste and one of pesto.
Mix together, add a lot of parmesan and mozzarella if you like a lot of cheese (I do!).
Add optional veges, I like fresh mushrooms or just those cheap frozen cubed veges.
Quit screwing around in the kitchen and get back to work while you eat lunch ;D The total time spent in the kitchen (not including pasta cooking time because I am generally back at the computer during that) is maybe 5 minutes.
It doesn’t look particularly appetising and it’s definitely not presented very well but it tastes good and it’ll get you through until dinner haha!
For something more visually appealing, here’s some packet mix pudding that I made last month. It looks good and I didn’t think it tasted half bad but James thought it was the worst thing in the world and spit most of it back into the sink. Clearly I need to stick to baking pies and macarons!
 
I’m completely obsessed with watching videos of those Japanese DIY gummy sweets though, they look like SO much fun to make and if importing wasn’t so insanely expensive I would totally get a bunch of them to experiment with! I need to find a Japanese grocer near here so I can start hunting for them at reasonable prices ^_^ If you haven’t seen the videos you totally need to, just check out RRCheriePie’s Channel. I wasted too much time watching them on the weekend… I probably should have spent that time making better pasta 😉
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by VioletLeBeaux | Feb 9, 2012 | Craft, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial
This craft is one for my across the globe friends who are currently enjoying Winter… or for those of us suffering through hot Summer and dreaming of cooler weather!
I LOVE window stickers. All of our windows are covered with squishy gel stars from Daiso and I have some little mini ones like this kitty that I bought at Camberwell markets. I sit at my little desk pretty much all day every day so looking through a window full of pretty stars brings a little cuteness and magic to my boring days ^_^
So being unbearably hot I decided to remind myself of the Winter with some home made snow flakes!
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Here’s how I did it…You need:
- Puff paint (you can buy special window paint but puff paint is cheaper and your local junk/craft store will be more likely to have it)
- Baking paper
- A pen/pencil to draw out your design.
When I took the photos for this I was using aluminium foil as my surface but that ended up being quite annoying during the removal stage so I used baking paper all of the other times. If you don’t have baking paper you can just do it on regular paper and then soak it until the paper disintegrates off later.
So anyway back to the instructions 😀
Draw your design on to your baking paper, because it’s slightly transparent you can draw the design onto the back of the paper if you want to make sure no pen gets on the end product.
This was my basic design.
Now draw on top of your design with the puff paint. You want to make the lines fairly thick because it shrinks a bit when it dries.
I experimented with different sizes before I found the best one for the consistency of my paint. My end products were around 5cm in diameter but yours might change depending on the paint you’re using.
Too small and you’ll end up with a runny mess 😉
So leave them to dry overnight, it needs to be completely dry before you try to remove.
To get them off just gently peel an edge of the paper. You may need to be careful with any small edges.
Taadaa!
The baking paper buckles slightly when it’s wet so the back has a cut looking wavy effect.
To stick them to the window just moisten the back and press it to the window 😀
So easy to do and so pretty. You can make any shape you want, I’ve just gotten some new paints so I’m going to make a whole lot of these for all over the house 😀 Haha maybe all of you on the other side of the world can make some Summer themed ones! |
by VioletLeBeaux | Feb 8, 2012 | Craft, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial
Here’s another very simple hime gyaru phone strap that I made to use as some inspiration ^_^ Even if you don’t have these exact materials you could easily substitute or just use the base idea to create something much more elaborate 😀
I used an old hair tie with a bow on it and a pretty hair clip which had broken.
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I snipped off the hairband and removed the clips. I use felt for the backing of clips like this to cover all of the joins. So after deciding on placement I cut out the shape of felt.
I glued it all together.
Then added a jewellery loop at the top with a second piece of felt to anchor it.
Phone strap attached…
DONE!
Two old hair accessories recycled into something pretty and new which will be a great gift for a friend 😀
I am loving making things like this, I keep fantasizing about when we have a bigger house and I’m able to have a craft room again. I can totally imagine myself sitting around all day and making phone straps and things, who knows maybe I would even have a little shop, that sounds like so much fun 😀 *dreaming* |
