A while ago Celeste came to visit and we decided to have some fun and experiment with various fun hair styles and make up 😀 Celeste had never tried big hime style hair before so I thought I would use her as a life sized doll and play with her hair. We made a quick little video showing the steps. I thought I would post it because I often get questions about my hair. While I’ve done tutorials in the past this might be useful as you can see a bit of detail and how quick it is to create.
That and you can enjoy giggling at us as we go. The audio was no good but if you can imagine this conversation in the background you’re pretty much set…
Violet: *does hair*
Celeste: :O it’s huge!
Violet: Bigger the better 😀
Celeste: *trying very hard to muffle juvenile laughter*
Violet: Ahahahahaha bigger the better, I get it!
Celeste: *Sends photos to room mate*
Roommate: ZOMG SQUID HEAD!!
Celeste: -_-‘
Violet: *snicker snicker snicker*
And much laughter was had all around.
So hope that was a little useful ^_^ We did a couple of other styles which I will posts too. Next time we do something like this I’ll have a new lighting set up so everything will be nicer quality yay!
This video was created for my blog as a simple way to show how I usually do my hair for a hime gyaru style. The model for the day was Celeste from Becoming Beautiful.
For more information please check the post about it over here: http://bit.ly/rbAxB0
Or check Celeste’s post over here: http://bit.ly/neVAiI
Music used is “Merry Go” licensed under creative commons, royalty free by Kevin Mcleod from http://incompetech.com/
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 on Violet Vision. Easy hime style hair.
You need bobby pins, teasing comb, hair spray and bow.s
The finished look.
Start by brushing your hair.
Take a once inche section at the front from ear to ear and clip to the side.
Pull up and tease into a gigantic puff.
To tease, drap the comb from the tips to the root of the hair so it scrunches in on itself.
And tease it some more.
Grab the puff in your hand and shape it into a ball by rolling backwards.
Pin it in place at the base.
Spray and smooth over into shape with your hands.
Unclip the front section.
and split it into 3 sections: left, center, right.
Lightly tease it on the back side.
Brush through the front side.
Pin it in place at the base of the puff.
Spray and tease the back.
Brush the front and pull up, back over the puff and across the opposite side.
Pin in place once at the base of the puff and once at the top/back.
Repeat on the other side.
Brush up, spray, tease the back.
Brush the front, lay over the puff and pin to the opposite side.
Spray all over to secure.
Now is a good time for progress photos.
Use curling tongs or a straightener to create loose curls all over the rest of the hair.
This might take a while.
Separate the curls with your fingers and comb near the roots.
Tease the roots to give it volume and less of a perfect feel.
Repeat on the other side.
Fluff out the curls and give everything a spray.
If you need to just add more pins.
And a pretty bow.
Send photos to your friends so they can giggle at your transformation.
For more information see violetlebeaux.com
Thanks for watching.
Another mini tutorial today while I try to get back into the swing of things. I started a small project last night (crochet bunny scent holder) to get me motivated to start some of the larger ones in the mean time here are photos I dug off my phone of how I lined my dresser drawer with leopard print.
The finished project:
What you need:
The drawer you’re planning to cover
Pretty paper
Clear sticky tape or thin double sided tape
Scissors
I was able to pull my drawer out of the dresser to make things easier.
First thing to do is measure out enough paper to cover the bottom and up all of the sides. It’s much better to overestimate and have to cut off the excess later than it is to have to try and add more so be generous with your measurements. I am using wrapping paper I found at a junk store, you can use pretty much anything including pretty fabric.
Now lay the paper over the drawer and poke the middle down until it touches the bottom. It’s easiest to start with one side and poke gently it until you can feel where the base of the drawer meets the side. Then run your fingernail or something that shape (but not sharp like a pencil) along the corner so the paper is creased into the correct shape.
Continue around the edges doing that for each one. You’ll notice there are big extra triangles of paper in each corner. Push them to one side and press flat so the crease holds.
If the pattern on your paper doesn’t match up because of the corner triangles you can unfold them and bend the creases the other way so the triangle is on the outside. Mine looked ok so I didn’t bother. Repeat until you have done all of the sides/corners and the piece of paper is the correct shape.
Now pull the paper out and place a few strips of double sided take on the bottom to prevent it all moving around. Repeat on the sides and stick everything down securely. Use the scissors (or a sharp knife if you’re careful) to slice off all of the extra so it it’s the same height as the tops of the drawer. I decided to tape around the edges to make sure it was all secure, it’s only really necessary if you think your drawer will get a lot of use.
Slot it back in and you’re done!
A quick and easy way to decorate a plain drawer! Now I’m scheming what else I can cover with the leopard print paper because I’ve got like 3m left XD
Finally managed to finish one of my long term crafting projects. Embroidery is something I either go crazy with and do all the time or just leave and don’t look at for months and this was one of the ones that took me months to get the motivation to finish!
Basically it’s a little cute frame with cross stitch to hold purikura photos. I found the frame at a thrift store around 2 years ago for 50cents 😀 The pattern inside was to test out some random stitches and try out my skills because I haven’t done cross stitch since I was a kid!
What you need:
Pretty frame
Counted embroidery fabric
Needle
Various colours of embroidery thread
Purikura or photo for the inside
Embroidery hoop
Pen/pencil
Measure a big square of fabric which is enough to cover the frame and fit in the embroidery hoop and cut it. Using the pen draw around the outside of the frame to use as a guide.
Flip it over and draw around the inside hole too. You will want to find the center as well and mark it with the pen too.
I drew a cross so I could have an obvious guide.
Line the photo you’re going to use up in the middle and draw around it.
So you’ve got something like this…
Because I was pretty much winging it I drew a design on the fabric but if you are following a pattern you can just count.
Now it’s time to put it on the embroidery hoop. The hoop I’m using is a standard wood one and it cost around $0.60
Untwist the screw and sandwich the fabric between the wood pieces, the big one should be on top.
Push them together and pull the fabric tight. Screw the top to hold it all in place. It should be very taught like a drum!
So let’s get stitching! At this point it should be mentioned that you can stitch with the full thread or you can split up the thread and just use one or two strands depending on the size of the weave of your fabric.
I started off using the whole thread but decided later to switch to a couple of strands because it was too thick.
So pick a place you want to start, I started with a small heart. Pull the thread from the back to front leaving a few inches as a tail. If you want you can knot the end of the thread but I prefer to hold it so the finished project isn’t lumpy.
I’m starting at the bottom of the heart.
Stitch into the hole that is diagonally opposite to the first. My preference is to stitch diagonally from bottom to top but whatever is more comfortable is fine.
Now pull up from the back in the hole next to where you just went down.
And diagonally over into the last hole. That’s it! You just made a cross ^_^
Repeat this over and over again to make your shape.
2 crosses! Now it’s important to note that you need to keep the method consistant through the whole design or it will look odd. So if you start from bottom left and go up to top right as the first stitch then do that the entire thing.
Heart #1 done!
If you keep going things will start to take shape after a while.
I prefer to do all of the main elements eg. hearts, sparkles, roses first and then worry about the background afterwards.
I also find it easier to do all of the stitches with the same colour at once, it saves having to switch needles so much!
All of the main bits are now complete so it’s time to start the background.
Going up and down from left to right like this keeps everything nice and even…
But sometimes if I’m impatient I will go ahead and do a bunch of the first stitch in one go and then work backwards and cross them all off XD For some reason it just feel quicker!
Progress..
And done! It’s not a perfect oval but as long as the shape fits in the frame it doesn’t matter.
Now cut your purikura down if need be. I lost the one I started this with so I had to dig for another shot. This is from back when I had black hair and James had… *some* hair mwahahaha!
Place it over the space and if you need to pin or glue it in place.
Stitch the corners to hold it in place…
And then fill in the gaps with more stitches.
That’s all the stitching part out of the way thank god! Remove it from the embroidery hoop.
Cut it down to the size which actually fits into the frame.
I overestimated the stitching area so I had to cut the fabric very close XD
And there it is in the frame!
Quite pretty if I do say so myself… but I think I won’t take up any more embroidery projects until I finish all my half done ones XD I need more motivation to finish the big projects! The pattern for this will be available in the first upload lot too.
Hope you enjoyed, let me know if you make your own!
Tea… my number 1 obsession. Craft… my number 2 obsession. When the two of them intersect it makes me a very happy girl. So how to make that happen? Craft a tea wallet for my purse! Some people are really particular about their teas blends, when I was little I had an adopted grandmother who loved lemon juice in her tea and rather than ask when she visited other people’s houses she would carry a bottle of it in her handbag… not even a small bottle… one of those big yellow squeezy bottles. Following on from that there are sometimes when I just desperately feel like a particular blend. When I worked in an office I had a huge collection of my favorites in my desk draw just in case! Now that I work for myself it’s all about portability and thus the tea wallet was decided upon.
This was my end result, it folds in half and fits neatly into a bag pocket…
Indeed the stitching is not particularly neat but I think this was more of a test run for a better, prettier version so I didn’t want to spend a huge amount of time on it only to find out the end result sucked and I never used it! I’ve also just had no patience for crafts lately, hence the lack of tutorials >_< Now that I know it does get used I’m going to spend more time on a re-make and machine stitch it all :DWhat you need:
Fabric scraps
Needle/thread
Scissors
Tea bags to get measurements from
Felt for decoration
First step let’s make the little bag part. You need two rectangles of fabric, one which fits two teabags with enough gab around them like this:
And one which is as wide but around 3cm shorter so it can form a pocket like this:
Working with the pocket, take your needle and thread and fold one of the long sides over twice to form a rolled seam. Stitch down to keep it in place. I’m using white thread so you can see where I’m stitching.
Taadaa…
Lay it on top of the larger piece with the seam facing up.
Stitch around the edges of the pocket like this…
And flip the whole thing inside out ^_^
You should have something like this!
Next fold the edges around the top and sides in and stitch all around the outside. Also stitch a line in the middle so it becomes 2 pockets.
You should have something along these lines…
Now it’s time for decorations. I chose to use the Lizlisa mascots because they are adorable and the girl has her hair in my absolute favorite style! I love the little lamb and girl mascots so much they are my phone background too XD You can see the originals on the Lizlisa tumblr here.
So I cut out my felt pieces to match, you can use anything though. If anyone wants a pattern for these let me know and I’ll add it to the list. I’m planning to put up around 10 patterns for old tutorials at a time starting in the next few weeks once I’ve stopped moving around so much.
Very easy to do… just stitch the felt characters on.
The girl was too big because I didn’t really think it all through so I decided to just leave her hair sticking up over the top as a point of interest. Big hair for the win XD
After everything’s in place just stitch on their faces and any details they’re missing and you’re finished!
When I re-do it I’m going to add a lot more detail to the faces and maybe do full on embroidery in the various colours.
And inside…
So there you go, a tea project for tea tragics like me XD Hope that was a useful starting point for some of you and fingers crossed I get time for more crafting next weekend so I can maybe get my groove back with it >_<
A lot of you guys write to me with photography questions and while I love looking at pretty photos and I do *kind of* dabble in it I am really not knowledgeable about the subject in the slightest. In fact, pretty much any knowledge about photography I have is based on things James tells me or if I’ve learned it myself it’s through trial and error. That said I want to be as helpful as I can so I usually inlist his help in answering photography questions. A lot of people ask about taking product photos for review posts and the like, I like nice clean white backgrounds so all of mine are taken inside a light box. We recently bought our own but up until a few weeks ago we were using James’ DIY method.He wrote a post about it around a year ago so I though I would get him to guest post about it here because it might be helpful for you guys ^_^ If you find this one useful or if you have questions just leave them in the comments section and I might be able to convince him to do a regular guest spot here! I’ve added a couple of little comments into the post in this colour too 🙂
Ever wonder how those eBay sellers get such nice, even lighting on their products? While some may use expensive lighting set-ups like soft-boxes and ring flashes, you don’t have to go down that road. Especially if you are selling smaller items, you can use something called a Light Tent.
These go by many names; light box, light tent…light cube. Well I guess that’s it. You can buy folding ones on eBay like this for around $39.95, but let’s say you don’t have the money or you have a job the next day and don’t have to the time to wait for delivery. While it might not look super professional, you can make your own using things around the house. (This version also is good if you live in an apartment because you can throw it away after you’re done and make a new one next time! ~V)All you need is:
5 pieces of paper that are all the same length, I’m working with A4 printer paper (Don’t steal your girlfriend’s fancy expensive art paper without asking, she will be mad if you do, trust me! ~V)
A roll of tape. Clear is best, but what every you can find should work as long as it’s not colored
Scissors. If you don’t have these, then don’t freak out, it just makes things a little neater.
Possibly a chopstick or ruler or something to prop your light tent up
Light source. External flash would be best, but before I had one I used everything from desk lamps to floodlights
Ok, to start with you are going to need to turn one of your pieces of paper into a square. There are two ways to do this. The first way is to get out your ruler and measure yourself a square. The second I feel is faster, but kind of hard to explain, so bear with me. Take two pieces of paper. Lay one sideways on top ofthe other one to make an L shape. Anything that is over the edge of the bottom piece has got to go, so cut it off. Voila! You should be left with one A4 piece and one square. If you still aren’t following I’m going to try to make a very simple picture diagram.
If it’s not working for you, give up and get a ruler. If you don’t have scissors to cut it, just fold the piece again and again and again and then it should tear down that crease fairly accurately. Now take three of your pieces of paper and put them side by side so that they are tall, not long. Then take the square piece you just made and place it above the middle Piece of paper. Last step, take your last A4 piece of paper and put it above the square piece. Confused yet? Here’s a picture of what it should look like.
Kind of like an upside down T right? Good. Now we are going to tape all of this together. So you can easily see where I think you should tape, I’ll photoshop in some dark grey bars. You can tape yours where ever your heart desires! Did any of you do these at school in geometry class? Basically what we are trying to do is turn this shape into a cube, so as well as putting the tape marks in, I’ll label what the pieces are going to be when it’s done.
Ok, once those are taped, you fold up the sides and back, then tape them together. Fold the roof down and then tape that to the sides. You’re done! You should have a rectangular cube without a front. The taping can be a bit tricky, so instead of taping the roof piece to the back piece, you could tape all the A4 pieces side by side, and then fold them over so it makes kind of a square wheel. See below.
Whatever you decide to do, the result will come out the same and that is looking something like this. (Basically you made a box with one of the square sides missing ~V)
Obviously, this isn’t all taped up correctly, but I roughly taped it up and then forgot to the take a picture of the final result. When you lay it down it is going to sag because it’s just paper and as any architect will tell you, paper doesn’t make good building material. To combat this you can find something that is roughly the same height as the box it’s self. As you can see, I used chopsticks. Now it can hold it’s self up and smells delicious!
So how do you set up your lights? Any way you want. Experimenting is the key to finding your signature look, But if you just want some even lighting, here is the way I have set up my lights.
As you can see I have my main light source propped up a bit to shoot down at an angle, then my reflector (which again is just a car sun shade) on the other side to bounce some light back in. Thanks to all the white the light will bounce around inside the light tent, eliminating pretty much all of the shadows. (If you don’t have fancy lighting don’t worry, just stick a desk lamp over it or one from each side so it’s nice and even ~V)
Let’s look at some examples!
One of my favorite belt buckles.
A little something for Easter.
And some product shots I did for Violet.
As you can see, these things can be terribly useful and come together in a couple of minutes.
Some tips for shooting in a Light Tent
1. Shoot in manual mode, this will avoid the tricky metering problems and allow you to expose the way you want to consistently.
2. Drop your flash’s power down to 1/2 or 1/4 power.
3. Keep your aperture at around f/5.6 or higher. When you are this close to the subject and zoomed in for close up’s it’s easy to think the whole product is going to be in focus, but when you switch to the computer you find your shallow depth of field has let you down. Learn from my mistakes people.
4. If you are going to be cutting these out of the white background, over exposing your shots will make the background whiter and easier to cut out.
Now get busy!
Thanks for all of that information James! Hope that answered some questions and please let me know if you have any more. I would love to see if any of you give it a try!
James writes a general photography blog over at www.JimmyAmerica.com so go visit him and say hi!
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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