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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Today’s video is a quick tutorial n how to do some simple lacy nail art.
I love silver and pink together so this is a fun combination.
First step, you need to lay down a base colour.
I am using a very light pink.
You may need a couple of coats to make it completely opaque.
Clean up around the edges by using a cuticle stick with a little bit of polish remover soaked cotton wrapped around the end.
Now it’s time to add the design.
I am using a bright pink Essence nail art polish.
Whatever polish you use, you will find it easier to use a long striping brush like this.
Load the brush with polish.
Lay it diagonally across the nail and draf upwards so it forms a stripe like this.
You might need to touch up the end if you didn’t have enough polish to do it first go.
Next load your brush with silver, again I’m using some from Essence.
using the same technique, drag the brush across to create a thicker silver line below the pink one.
Now add little semi-circles along the bottom of the silver line.
You may find it easier to use a small nail art brush if you can’t control the long brush properly.
Now add another small diagonal silver stripe to the top corner.
The next step is to create the lattice pattern at the top so paint a couple of horizontal stripes between the top silver line and the pink one.
Then add the same amount going the other way.
Add one more pink stripe above the top silver one.
If you want you could also fill tin the rest of the top with the pink for extra pop.
Lastly, to tie it all together, place small pink dots following the lines of the silver bumps.
Done! Very pretty but not too over the top.
So now it’s just a matter of painting all of your other nails to match.
While waiting for the polish to dry I practice my awesome TapTap Revenge moves.
Without all of the speeding up, I think this hand took me around 15 minutes to do, not including waiting for the polish to dry initially so this is a style which you could do before a night out of special occasion.
Striping quickly and neatly takes a bit of practice.
My biggest tip would be to rest your hand on something and move the nail rather than the brush.
Doing all of these little lace loopy parts really is much easier and more precise if you use a short thin nail brush but oh well.
Of course this is much more interesting when you’re doing it on yourself rather than watching me.
The little dots can be easier to make perfectly even if you use a dotting tool or the end of a match stick.
And there you have it. Nailed it! haha Ok sorry that was a james joke.
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!
And here’s another random decorating junk post. My new video set up requires a little swiveling mirror so I can see what I’m doing, cue trip to Tokuya for a cheap but adorable one 😀
Result:
Cute but not as cute as it probably could be. Enter random decorations from my craft stash and a glue gun stage right:
I didn’t actually end up using anything other than the tiara and some little star beads which I’m completely in love with but sometimes things just need a little bit of decoration ^_^
The tiara has gone past it’s days of being ok to put in hair as the metal has oxidised quite severely, it’s still very pretty though so I removed it from the clip with piers and flattened it out.
I then glued it to the top of the mirror.
Added a couple of stars around the outside…
And that’s it! Very simple and it just added an extra personalised touch to everything ^_^
And I’ll show you a shot of it in action when I do the storage post on my make up area again ^_^
So I still haven’t had time to go white stocking shopping even though you guys gave me so many awesome recommendations! In the meanwhile until I have proper shopping time I came up with a make shift solution. James was in Myer looking at cameras and he saw a discount bin full of really thick nice white leggings for $4. Score! But I don’t really wear leggings, I think they make me look a bit odd (scratch that I’m going to experiment with them more and see if I can make them work). So easy solution: buy the biggest size and sew up the ends to make them into stockings. Problem solved!
It doesn’t really need instruction but here’s some anyway…Take leggings in a much bigger size than you are…
Turn them inside out…
Making sure that you laid them out flat and the ends haven’t twisted, and sew them shut. Of course they would be much more durable if you overlocked them rather than hand stitching.
Stitches should be along the lines of this but you know, less Photoshop and more actual stitches in a matching thread…
DONE. Now put on your make shift stockings ask yourself why on earth Myer stocks 230948023958 kinds of nice opaque white/cream leggings and no *properly* opaque white/cream stockings? There is no correct answer so just go enjoy your discount stockings until you can get time off to go real shopping.
I have a bit of a soft spot for glasses, in fact I’ve worn them since I was around 9 years old and while my sight is a lot better now so I don’t need them for reading or distance (unless its for a long period of time) I still love the way they look! I’ve been wanting to deco a pair properly for the longest of times, mostly as just for a fun photography prop and when I realised the potential of the gold sunglasses I got from Fashion Addict I decided to take the leap.
So these are the glasses I started with:
I wasn’t a fan of how they looked on me so they had been sitting in my cupboard since I did the original post. No point having them there if I’m never going to wear them so I got to work and this is what came out:
Perfect for the diy at home purikura booth I’m planning to rig up for a tea party 😀
What I used:
Sunglasses
Deco supplies: diamantes, bows, stars etc
Epoxy glue
Pliers
First thing to do was poke out the lenses, they were really hard to break so I ended up moving the metal frames with the pliers and then forcing them free.
Lens free!
Then it was a metter of changing the shape to something a bit more suitable for my face. I achieved this by using some pliers and bending the metal into a more flat square shape. I also bent the curve around the face so it was much flatter.
One on the right done, left untouched:
Happy with the shape now, super old man style ^_^
Then I decided what I wanted the feature piece to be. I used a bow that came off a pair of Bodyline shoes.
I picked a couple of different jewels and cabachons to experiment on a style with.
I laid out the rest of the jewels to decide on the design next!
And after that it was just a matter of mixing up the glue and sticking it all down.
The top section was done first…
The around the bottoms:
I did the bottom in smaller sections because the rims were thin so I needed to wait for the glue to be tacky and balance the jewels in place. Lastly I added a little butterfly over the bow to cover the ugly string.
Last thing I did was add matching jewels to the side while making sure not to prevent the arms from opening/clothing.
From the back…
And the front…
Pretty damn happy with the result! They are super huge, super over the top and super awesome as a blingy accessory 😀
Ridiculous bling for the win ^_^ And to show how ridiculously huge these really are, here’s a crappy phone photo from 2am after I made them!
Monday means video time ^_^ Today is another hair tutorial, next up are some nail art ones using the new set up that I’m really excited about.
This video is a companion piece to the Overhead Summer Plait style tutorial I posted while ago over here. Hopefully it clears up some of the questions that were asked about the original and makes it easier to see what’s going on! I love this style for Spring/Summer but it looks great with fuzzy ear muffs and a scarf in Winter too.
I’m really enjoying making these videos so if you guys have any requests or there are old tutorials you want me to remake in video form to clarify instructions just let me know in the comments! I have had a couple of requests for vlog kind of things where I talk but I don’t know if that would actually be interesting or if I would even have enough to say to not just have several minutes of silence XD
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.
This is my favorite Summer hair style.
It’s great for hot weather because it keeps the hair off your neck.
If you pin it enough it’s ridiculously sturdy too so great for windy days or bad hair days.
You will need a brush, pins, hair ties and something to decorate with.
Brush you hair our and part down the middle into two sections.
Tie one of the sections into a pony tail to keep it out of the way.
You might want to pin your fringe out of the way as well as any layers you want to leave down.
Plait the other section of your hair tightly down to the end.
You need to plait in an overhand way so the first step is taking the back section over rather than under.
This will ensure it sits flat against the side of your head.
Tie it off with a hair tie as close to the end as possible.
Now repeat on the other side but this time don’t tie it off.
Many people have asked if this style works for shorter hair, the answer is yes.
Just pull the section of hair up so the plait starts higher up the side of your head.
Take the plait and pull it upwards and over the top of your head.
Take a bobby pin and slide it over the end of the plait to hold it in place.
You might need more than one pin but it just needs to hold for a minute while we fix the other side.
Remove the tie from the other plait and pull it up and over to the other side of your head.
Follow the same line as the first plait so they cross over at the top.
Poke the ends of the plait under the beginnings of the other one.
Pin it in place.
Now move the beginning of the first plait over the top so the ends are all hidden.
You should add pins on both sides of it.
You can see the ends on the left are hidden pretty well but ones on the right need to be squished in more.
The technique I used for pinning is to grab a bit from the plait and a bit from the scalp, pull away, rotate the pin in towards the plait again and slide underneath.
The twisting makes it very secure.
Now it’s just a matter of straightening or curling your fringe and the layers around your face.
And adding some pretty accessories.
I’m using a chain of felt daisies that I made.
In the past I’ve also used little bows and fake flowers, anything goes.
And that’s all finished.
Cute, sweet and very pretty for Summer.
It’s a little bit dreamy.
So it’s perfect for imagining you’re in a romantic novel and spend your days staring longingly out windows and waiting for a lost love.
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.
