Woohoo the return of Food Friday! It’s been quite a while, mostly because I haven’t been well organised. You’ll be surprised to know that I didn’t stop eating for these last few months, I only stopped remembering to charge my camera when I did so no photos 😉
Hopefully this will make up for it though, it’s my current favorite dessert (and sometimes breakfast) the Timtam Berry Crush. I’m very sad that the rest of the world doesn’t have Timtams, I know the UK has Penguins but they’re not quite the same thing (not better or worse just not the same). The wikipedia page has their availability in other countries if you want to try to hunt some down! It’s totally worth it even if they’re a bit pricey. Random tivia: Timtams are one of few “Australian” things I actually like!
And this is what I’ve been doing with mine recently:
You need:
2 Timtams
Blueberries
Strawberries
Thickened cream (heavy cream/whatever the type of cream you generally eat with cake is called in your country, something with at least 35%+ fat)
Sprinkles
Fruitcake (not really needed but I had some spare to use up)
Now I see a lot of people making these fancy looking desserts in fancy looking wine glasses etc. I love how pretty they look but I also hate eating out of them because it’s hard to get the last bits out and the ones we have are small compared to regular glasses so I say screw prettiness, go with the biggest cup you have >:D
Left: Very pretty. Right: Realistic of how much I want to eat chocolate.
So this is the simplest concept ever: layering!
Stick a spoon full of fruitcake in the glass and pour a spoon of cream on it. If you’re not using fruitcake you can substitute with regular sponge cake or more chocolate biscuits.
Add some blueberries and chopped strawberries.
Roughly chop the Timtams and add some.
More cream!
Continue layering deliciousness until you get to the top.
Lastly add the sprinkles and enjoy!
eat while watching crappy movies or playing video games.
Took around 5 min to make and as the cream melts into the Timtams it forms the most delicious mush in the universe. *craving again*
Food Friday is as healthy as ever 😉 Next week I’m going to share my budget recipes, money is tight here at the moment so we’ve been cooking frugally. Sometimes the best comfort food recipes are the cheapest! ^_^
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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Low Curly Double Buns Hairstyle Instructions
Today I’ll show you one of my favourite styles.
It’s awesome because it looks so much more complicated than it is!
Start with waved or curled hair and split it into two ponytails just above your ears.
Use your hands to fluff up the ponytail.
Separate the curls and use your fingers to give it more volume.
To form the bun, grab the top 2/3rds of the ponytail in your hand and smoosh it to the side of your head above the elastic band.
Leave the last third dangling down for now.
Pin it in place until it’s secure.
The puffed out curls will form twists and loops making the bun look complicated.
You can leave the last piece of hair dangling for a softer look or fold it in half and pin under the bun.
By pinning it separately you can more easily control where the curls go as well as giving the bun more volume in general.
So repeating on the other side.
Fluff it up.
Pin up 2 thirds.
Pin up the final third.
And that’s all there is to it.
You probably want to hit it all with a good blast of hairspray to keep it all in place.
Cute!
I think this style looks fantastic if you add some cute accessories like bows, flowers or my current favourite: usamimi!
You can do this style with much shorter hair too, just puff it out more to get the same sized buns.
From the back you can see the hair covers all of the hairband.
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!
So quite a while ago, in fact I think it was almost 2 years ago, I wrote a tutorial on how to make an usamimi. I’m still loving them all of this time later so I thought I would rework the tutorial and show you and even easier way to do it.
This is what you’ll end up with…
What you need:
Fabric
Needle and thread or sewing machine
Wire
First thing you need to do is work out how long you want the usamimi to be and cut a rectangle of fabric to that size. Fold it in half on the long side (so it’s very thin and long) and cut the ends into slightly curved points. The photo below shows what the points should look like unfolded.
This is what you should end up with, two points on each end.
Fold it so the good side of the fabric is on the inside and start stitching at the crease. Go up to the point:
And back down the other side.
Continue stitching all the way down the side until you reach the end of the other point.
Tie off the thread and leave the other end of the point open.
Turn the whole thing inside out through the hole at the point.
If you need to, use something pointy like a pen to help push it all through.
You should have something along these lines:
Cut a length of wire a few inches longer than the fabric is point to point. Fold one end of the over and twist so it forms a loop. This will prevent it from poking through the stitching on the other side. Push the piece of wire into the usamimi through the hole and all the way to the other point.
In the other tutorial I wrote the wire was stitched around the outside of the fabric, that works best if you have very thin wire, this technique works best if you have thicker wire.
Once the wire is all the way in, twist the other end in a loop too.
Fold the edges of the hole under and hand stitch it completely shut.
Test it out by twisting it together and you’re good to go 😀
Very simple to do and super quick if you do them on the sewing machine too. If your fabric is very puffy you might like to topstitch the sides to flatten it a bit but I actually prefer the puffiness.
Hope you guys enjoyed, there’s a video version of this coming soon too!
Want to download this tutorial in one handy portable file?
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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 so I’m practising by making these videos.
This is a painting I did of Vocaloid Hatsune Miku. I have just discovered the world of vocaloids and am quite intrigued by it. I’m not particularly happy with the resulting painting but it was great to practice on a new character. My knowledge of Miku and the other vocaloids is fairly limited at the moment but I’m looking forward to learning more!
Next painting video will be another blogging friend: Nessbow so look out for that one soon!
See the full post here for more information: TBA
Subscribe to my channel: http://bit.ly/pfjebH
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
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hatsune Miku Speed Painting Instructions
Time for another speed painting video.
Today I was inspired by Vocaloid Hatsune Miku.
I have only just discovered the world of Vocaloids so I couldn’t help but be inspired to paint something.
The rest wasn’t one of my best pieces but it was a lot of fun to do.
Hope you enjoy.
The finished product!
First off I started with a sketch!
I transfered the sketch to the watercolour paper roughly.
Then filled in the details with a light yellow.
Next I started outlining in a bright green.
I find the idea of vocaloids really intriguing.
Computerised pop stars are such a fun idea.
I flooded the hair with a green wash.
The idea of live shows with them is very interesting too.
Then lightly washed over her clothes too.
Next was a wash on the skin.
After that I shaded the skin.
I added detail and fabric to the shirt using a darker black.
Black shadows on the clothes leaving a highlight.
The songs I’ve heard so far are really cute too.
Filling in even darker areas.
Very dark shadows on the clothes now.
Do you guys have a favorite vocaloid character?
Next was adding brighter green to the hair.
The designs are all so colourful which makes them fun to draw!
And all of the clothing detail.
Small details of the face next and light colour to the eyes.
Time to work on the background.
Big green spots everywhere.
Then slight shadow on them.
Then filling the rest with a yellow and green wash.
I’m still so out of practice with painting but doing this videos is motivating me.
Painting characters like this is fun practice.
Starting to come together!
Outlining everything in black now.
You could do this with pen too if you like.
I’m stocking up on cheap pens with all the back to school sales.
The hair was an area I wasn’t completely happy with.
It was a little too curved in the end.
Don’t forget if you have video suggestions let me know in the comments!
I love trying out new styles!
To give the background some more detail I added some black spots.
Lastly I added a couple of highlights in white.
A little blush and it’s done.
I had a lot of fun doing this so maybe I’ll start a vocaloid series.
So I hope you guys enjoyed!
It’s been fun learning old techniques again and I’m looking forward to improving again for next time.
Thanks for watching!
After I made the kitty sleep mask James gave me an idea to make a customisable one which could spell out a message to people looking. His suggestion of what it should spell was somewhat… inappropriate but I loved the idea and so this is what came out!
So if you’d like to make your own customisable sleep mask you need:
Black felt
Thick velcro
Other felt for the letters (I’m using grey)
Needle/thread
Ribbon or elastic to attach it
Lace or more ribbon for edging
Matching thick ribbon or more felt to match.
Start by cutting out the mask shape from your black felt, this will be the backing that everything gets sewn to.
Cut a piece of thick velcro which is the same width as the mask, the thicker the velcro is the bigger your letters can be so I chose a very big one. You will only need the pointy side of the velcro for this, not the soft one. The pointy side will hold felt letters fine but if you want to use something else to make the letters just add the soft part of the velcro to the back of them so they stick.
Now we need something to cover the edges and the rest of the backing. I had some pretty matching ribbon but you could also use some more felt. So cut a piece to go above and below the velcro like this:
The velcro makes it a bit harder to work with than regular fabric so pin it all in place.
And then cut it to shape.
To hold it all together you will need to edge it, I hand stitched some lace around all of the sides. If you didn’t want to use lace you could use matching ribbon or bias binding tape. Make sure you encase all of the raw edges in the lace so nothing can come undone later.
At this point you probably want to stop and have a bit of a giggle that you’ve inadvertently created a Kanye West style shutter glasses sleep mask XD If you’re into that kind of thing you could always just stop here haha!
Now you need a way of attaching it to your head, I sewed a piece of lace on each side to form ties but you could also use elastic.
Now cut out the words you want to spell from matching felt. If you want you could also cut out several options to use depending on your mood.
Press them firmly to the velcro and you’ve got a descriptive sleep mask!
Now if the mask actually said what my brain thought when people wake me up from naps it wouldn’t be suitable for the internet 😉
A new segment I’m trying out where in I show my morning make up routine for various days and chat about what I’m doing that day. Not really a tutorial, more of a random girly chat while we get ready together in the bathroom 😉
Today’s style features plum and white blended together. I wore a very similar look to this on New Years Eve and I think I’ll be wearing it again for Lunar New Years Celebrations this year because I’m in love with the colours.
See the full post here for more information: TBA
Subscribe to my channel: http://bit.ly/pfjebH
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
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Time for another random morning make up video in which I do my make up and we chat.
Today is a variation of the look I wore for New Years.
Ad usual I started with my foundation and added light pink highlighter to my brows.
I applied light pink shadow all over the lid.
What did you all get up to for New Years?
All of our plans were cancelled so we did everything last minute.
A purple/maroon colour was added to the outer corners in a C shape.
We ended up going to Docklands for the early fireworks.
Then I added some plumb over the inner edge of the maroon.
then we came home.
I didn’t like the first pink so I added another one over the top of it.
Then we went out again to Southbank for the real ones.
I used a very dark shimmer purple on the outer half of the lash line.
James has a real love for fireworks but I’m pretty indifferent to them. I think after you see one, they all look the same.
Next I added a little white liner to the center lash line and placed a dab of white shadow over it.
Here in Melbourne they launch the fireworks off all of the tallest CBD buildings.
Then using a fluffy brush I blended it all together.
We were standing right under one of them this time so the explosions lit up the cloud like lightening, that was pretty cool.
To make sure my liner brush has a nice point I put a drop of make up remover on a cotton pad and squeeze it into shape.
What does your city do for New Years?
Eyeliner time! I used a fairly thin line.
To be honest, I think I would be just as happy to celebrate the new year by staying at home watching a movie.
I added some bottom liner to the outer corner and joined up the bottom line to the top.
I think I live the lift of an old lady: napping, tea and embroidery.
Mascara and a little pink blush next.
In fact I think my life is probably even more boring than an old lady because it’s hard to yell at kids to get off my lawn in an apartment.
Then equally pink lipstick and gloss.
“Damn you whippersnappers get out of my hallway” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Lastly some winged 3/4 lashes to top it all off.
I think I need to work on my cranky old lady act.
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!
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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