Tutorial: Perfume Box

Ever since I got that new perfume for the holidays from a friend, I've realized that I don't have a good method of storing perfumes and such. I've got some samples that I keep in a small medicine cup, and some misc. perfumes that I put on my dresser. Except, my dresser is getting so crowded. So, I wanted to make a quick new box for myself. Super simple and easy to do really. I used a old shoebox (kept the cover because I liked it) and wall papered it. Then, I made a small hole to store samples by getting a foam piece, cutting slits in it, gluing 2 walls onto it and then gluing it to the box. Pictures below. Sorry that I'm not doing a super detailed thing, but it's really self explanatory and if you have questions, comment below.

I'm expecting a new haul and tutorials soon, so watch out!

Toodles<3

Contest giveaway!

New giveaway! http://www.theshadesofu.com/2009/12/mac-brush-set-giveaway-for-subscribers.html Enter for a chance to win MAC brushes

New contest!

Click here to win 3 nail polishes. Just follow and comment

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New giveaway to enter!

Enter here to win tons of stuff! YOu just need to comment, follow and repost:

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Swatch-fest and Some Recent Updates

Someone really needs to tell me how to make titles that are interesting because I'm scared that if I make something too wacky people will be like "uhm....... not reading this" becuase I know that I do that. I have so many blogs to read that I kinda skim and look for stuff I want to read. LOL.

Today isn't a tutorial because I've run out of things to do a tutorial about! AHHH! But, instead I've been wallowing in work and listening to k-pop. Yesterday I also made a visit to Upenn, the school that I was deferred from. But I'm still hopeful! Okay, no more boring stuff, time to get to work here

I got the Too Faced: Decade of Glamour- Beauty Wardrobe palette from.... Too Faced obviously (it was self-explanatory in the name) for the holidays from my friend. I loves her forever. I was surprised that some of the stuff in here debuted in 1998... I mean, I'm sure they just remade some becuase they still have the formulas. Whatever, I'm sure some of you guys out there have stuff from 5 years ago that you still use.

I love how it has a thing protecting the lip products from the eye and face products. Not that I'll ever finish the face products. The lip stuff are actually good sized samples (?) and I'll never finish them. BUT, i hate how the whole thing is humungo. It's not like I can just stick it in my purse. If I do and I want to reapply makeup in school, it's like OMG, CLEAR THE PREMISES! PLEASE GIVE HER SPACE! Seriously. It's not like a small thing. This is huge.

Also, do you see the "eyeliner"? The thing is laughably small. It's smaller than a mini mascara. This is how it compares to a reg. eyeliner. I think that Too Faced could have coughed up some more money for a larger eyeliner. In the packaging there is still 1 or more inches left above the eyeliner. And why black? Why not a different color? Why not just scrap the useless thing in the first place and just put more eyeshadows? My gawd. And the lip injection that's the size of a mini mascara? That's FULL SIZED. full sized my ass. That's like a key chain lipgloss for 13 year olds. Enough, onward

Here are the swatches:

Special Thanks to Mika at Beautysnap.blogspot.com for telling me about the tulip thing to make pictures sharper! I finally found it LOL.

Toodles<3

Tutorial: Turning a shirt into a skirt!

Ew, this shirt, is so ugly. I mean it looks OKAY now, but in reality it's so gross because the top, doesnt actually go below the belly button and its humgoly WIDE. I mean, I would wear this if I were:

1. Pregnant- This is wide enough to be a maternity shirt.

2. If I had a stomachache- to give my stomach some space so it can breathe

3. Were to go to a thanksgiving party- to give my stomach space to expand

Unfortunately, none of those things apply to me, so I decided to be thrifty and make it from a ugly shirt into a fabulous skirt!

Instructions:

1. First you want to just cut off the top part, the part with the sleeves/arm holes. You don't need them anyway!

2. Now, take the top (assuming that the bottom is nicely hemmed), and hem it. You want to leave a space open so you can put the elastic in. Also, the hem should be around 1 inch wide or so. And if the fabric is sheer, before you do the hem, please pleaseplease put a lining. Just sew one in underneath the skirt so that your thigh muscle doesn't like, stick through because that's so gross.

3. Now, take a piece of elastic and cut off a piece that just wraps around your waist. Shove it through that space that you left open and drag it all around through the waistband. Now, tie it so that the waist becomes around 2-3 inches smaller than your actual waist. You need it to GRIP not just hang loose on your waist, unless you like the "my ass sticks out" look.

4. Now, notice how on the bottom it's really weird? This is your chance to pick off any weird stuff, make some outside decorations etcetc. I added a lace piece on the outside of the skirt and sewed the bottom so that it's not so flippy.

5. Finished product! Beayuuuuuutiful. Lovely. Now, I must do my Stats Extra Credit!

Toodles<3

Win WinWIn

MAC giveaway: http://ricahx15.blogspot.com/2009/12/holiday-mac-giveaway.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EveryGirlsLittleAddiction+%28Every+girl%27s+little+addiction...%29 Ends Dec 25

New contest

You could win 12 nail polishes, 1 matte top coat, nail file and cosmetic case from Diamond Cosmetics:http://paintedladyfingers.blogspot.com/2009/12/ladies-choice-of-diamonds-contest.html

Enter by December 20

Tutorial: Skinny or thinnish Jeans

You know what's really annoying? When you recieve a pair of jeans and they don't fit as well as you'd like. Maybe there's a pooch in the thigh area, the jeans are bell bottomey instead of skinny, or they're just 1 cm too big all around. Annoying right? Well, I'm going to teach you how to thin down your jeans to make them skinny jeans.

Instructions:


1. Start off with a pair of jeans, and flip them inside out. You know when you try to lay them flat, there's always a bit of extra fabric on the butt side to well, accomodate your butt right? So, pull all of that extra fabric towards the outer seam (not the inner seam where your crotch is). I'm using a pair of corduroy pants and they are bell bottoms.





2. Now, take a pair of your own store bought skinny or straight legged jeans and lay them over the pants. Those will be your beginning template. take a piece of chalk and draw line marking where you want to sew. It's better to make it not skinny enough than to make it too skinny. I swear, it take forever to pick out so many stiches. Trust me of this.





3. Sew! Use a sewing machine before your hand falls of from exhaustion. Then, try the jeans on. If they're too big, make the jeans a tiny bit smaller by sewing another line on the left side the original stiching. Aka, sew a line nearest your crotch pants area. If you someone have it perfect, sew another seam on the OUTSIDE, aka to the right of the original seam. It just gives you extra reinforcement.

4. Now, cut off the excess fabric, hem it up if needed (max half cm deviation) and voila! You have a new pair of skinny jeans. I'm sort of bending over becuase the light is shining in my eyes.



Tips to get you by:

- This isn't meant to be skin tight. It just helps to keep any excess fabric in place. I suggest going to a tailor if you want something skin tight.


- If you have particularly thick denim, you'll need a thicker needle and specially made for denim thread because regular cotton stuff isn't going to hold too well for denim.

- If you have to sew away too much, just consider getting a new pair of jeans because it's kind of difficult to go from a size 6 to a size 1. You'll be sewing over pockets which is a horrible hassel.

Toodles<3

New Contest!

http://thebeautycounter.blogspot.com/2009/12/100-pure-giveaway.html Comment and subscribe to win a wet of 100% pure body stuff. Ends December 15th!

new contests to join

Follow, comment to enter!

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Tutorials galore! You know, I'm kinda sick of doing these titles as they all start to sound the same after a while.

Oh hot damn! I'm on this HUGE tutorial crafting kick. Well, this is more of a half tutorial since I forgot to take pictures and well, I'm using the rest of the material to do some other stuff. Sorry, but there is no way I will post this much later this week considering I'm back in school this week. But, do expect a new swap haul and maybe a new COFD (craft of the day XP) over the weekend? Maybe maybemaybe. okayokay. First up, I made a small cosmetic case for myself. It's by using .25 of a square scarf, light purple cloth lining, button and string that wraps around it as the clasp. It holds actually a ton of stuff including that new magnetic palette, brushes etcetcetc.

I should get around to making something that can hold just a day's worth of brushes. not a brush roll, I already made that for myself.

Next, a vintagey hair clip. I actually made this for my sister. It's super easy and quick for a present and it kinda reminds me of queens in England in like.... 1700s or something LOL

Instructions:

1. Using a lace-y cloth, cut out a piece that is approximately the length and width of the clip. You can fold it to the correct width if you'd like. Flat clips are better. Or flattish ones.

2. Now, just glue on your decorations! Super simple right? I used jewels that I ripped off an old shoe and some beads that I got off an broken bracelet. Always salvage what you can! You really never know when it would come in handy. Or, just go to the craft store. haha

Toodles<3

Happy Thanksgiving and New Tutorial for you guys!

First off, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I will be eating turkey legs and mashed potatoes. You guys?

Anyway, I was just thinking about making a small makeup case for myself (I will do a tutorial on that as well, like months later) so if I ever do a sleepover or a small weekend trip with my friends, I'll have a nice carrying case for myself instead of doing the ziplock baggie method. But, I have depotted all of my shadows, becuase I don't have that much space in my room or my mini traincase. Most shadow packaging is like GINORMOUS. It's like yes, thanks company for using 2x as much plastic that is actually necessary. So, I depot. Same with lipsticks. I like to put darker lipsticks in small pots. It reduces the space necessary to store them by like literally, 300%. Yeah yeah, you need a lip brush but you know what? Give some take some.

Like I was saying. I use a discarded CD case as my palettes and they're kinda heavy and large. Too large to just shove in a small bag right? So I decided to make a tutorial on how to make a travel-size one. Pictures then tutorial:

It's meant to hold 4 DS sized eyeshadows comfortably. Approximately. So, 4 Revlon Matte shadows, 3 covergirl + 1 almay etcetcetc. But, if you NEED more, then (i've tried) you can fit up to 3 Revlon matte eyeshadows (side by side no space in between) and 2 HIP duos. So you always have enough!

Instructions:

1. See the template and cut out pieces accordingly. I used thick cardboard so it's sturdy.

2. Now, I will be dealing with all the pieces except the TOP okay? Okay! Cut out all the pieces, and really make sure that they fit well together. This is especially important because then they'll have a seamless fit. Wrap them in nicer paper so it's not ugly.

3. Take the base and cover it with sheets of magnets. You can use those cheap magnets that they give away at libraries, etcetcetc. Or you can go to a craft store and buy a magnetic sheet. It's important that it's a SHEET not those little circle-y things so that it lays as flat as possible.

4. Now, use a hotglue gun and glue all the sides (except the top!) together.

5. Now, measure again to make sure that the top fits perfectly. Wallpaper. Glue a button for the handle on the top. Also, take a small mirror that is sorta flattish and glue it on the other side. I used a mirror that I ripped off the HIP duo packaging.

6. Put it lightly on top of the actual box thing. Leave a little gap. Take a piece of duct tape and tape the top to the box. Open the box and repeat so that the gap is all covered by tape.

7. Okay! Almost done. Take another piece of tape and tape a piece of string to the lid as so:

8. Voila! Done! It fits in the palm of my hand at least.

Toodles<3

New Necklace + Happy Early Thanksgiving!

Recently, I swapped a BNIP eyeliner pencil for this necklace:

And happy thanksgiving to all! My school is out until next monday! I will be posting a new tutorial soon if i can even find the scotch tape. It has been lost in my house.

Toodles<3

Polka- Dotted Apple Giveaway!

http://makeuploveforever.blogspot.com/2009/10/polka-dotted-apples-first-giveaway.html Click there to enter! You can even win an Urban Decay Vol II shadow book! yay! You also need to answer these questions:

What is your most prized possession?
I'm assuming material things right? Well, it would be my laptop and my camera even though both need to be replaced! The laptop is so. Freaking. Slow. Like. It. Freezes. Up. all. the. time

What is your definition of beauty?
Self confidence, and a sunny smile =]

What makeup item (Brand and name of product) would you recommend to me?
Hm, I think that it would be...... Estee Lauder's Projectionist Mascara. Omfg. amazing love.

What is your favorite KIND of makeup item and why?
It would be mascara becuase frankly, I need it. My lashes are non exsistant.

A weird factoid about you. :B
I'm a really petite girl, but my voice really carries. Like really really carries.

What is the fondest memory of your childhood?
Eating a Turkey leg at Disney world

Describe yourself honestly.
I can be selfish and annoying and stuck up but, I still try to be charming and sunny.

Tell me something I could do to improve my blog.

Uhm..... ermm..... Maybe more swatches?

Toodles<3

New giveaway!

Just follow to enter!

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You can win a MAC fluid line!

new Giveaway!

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Ends tonight so if you're lucky, you can enter!!

Giveaway!

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New Vogue and Tutorial!

happy friday everyone! It's been a long week, but we made it! Today, I got my December issue of Vogue and I saw this ad in it. I really liked the person's hair style. I scanned it in and cropped it a bit. Sorry, but my camera is currently out of commission. It's veryyy old and tired.

This is how you do it:

1. Make two sections in the front of your head. Use the top few layers of your hair. Braid so that you have two braids awkwardly sticking out. If you want ribbons, then you should tie a ribbon to a strand of your braid and turn the knot so that it's against your scalp and not sticking out to the world. Then, treat it as connected to that strand of braid, and braid!

2. Now, take the remaining hair and tie it into a low, messy bun. It should have pieces sticking out and not neat. If it's too neat, then it's too severe looking.

3. Finally, take the two braids and wrap them towards your ear and clip! Yay! To make sure that the bobby pins stick, criss-cross them. I got this from Tyra.

Toodles<3

New Giveaway!

http://daintydollymix.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-50-follower-giveaway.html

Click there to win a pair of false lashes, a rimmel palette and a nail polish! Contest ends november 21st

Makeup Woes

I just wanted to take the time to talk at this very late hour of 10:12 PM EST about something we all experience and know about: Not enough money for everything, choosing between makeup and other non-essentials to life, and well, how much is too much?

To the first problem: Yes, before I get comments like "get a job" blahblahblah, I've applied to like 20 jobs over the summer and didn't get one. Oh well, life. And even if you do have a job, you still have obligations like food, shelter, water, NECESSARY clothing (i mean like underwear and stuff so that you don't look homeless). It's not like you can take every cent of your paycheck and just blow it on stuff. And theres ALWAYS stuff to buy. I mean, Always.

For example, you make a list for that TFSI, and the black leather jacket, some brushes. And before you know it, it's multiplied from 5 to 10 to 100 items! What?! Yes, it happens. I know. Don't you girls feel it sometimes? You keep thinking and you're like "oh hey, that would look GREAT with the dress I have, but I need some new necklaces, just in case". Just in case what? You actually will use it?

I swear, I have to like seriously berate myself and control! I've personally been on this HUGE mascara kick and well, it doesn't help that CVS is offering so many coupons and stuff. I like, need to buy something now. And well, I also want: curling iron, flat iron, clothing... how do I choose?

How do you ladies choose? I think that I'm going to do only swapping for now and save. I mean, I do this really competative rewards system with my dad(it's heavily rigged in his favor. and I really commit my ass to school) but still, I should save. A penny saved is another penny towards a MAC eyeshadow.

Swapping for me is just a good way to get more for less. Assuming that you have some stuff that you got from gifts and you swap it, you only really pay for shipping! maybe you can take some of the extras and swap those away for even more stuff! omg! It's the multiplier effect! WEll, not really but you catch the drift.

How much is too much? NEVER. It's never enough, really. When you think that you have enough, you like have reviewed this 10000 times in your head, trust me. It's really not. I find it better to admit to myself that yes, I am a flawed person and I will always need more. Let's just take it slow and enjoy what I have for as long as I can, before moving onto the next big craze.

Overall, I just wanted to get this off my chest, because well, this onslaught of coupons has just been driving me shopping crazy! I want this! I want that! But, I feel like blogging really just took this off my chest, and it's a great outlet for my "moments". You know, those moments when you feel like just RAMPAGING into a store and just running out with everything that you WANT. or NEED to HAVE NOW.

what do you ladies feel, think, about this? Does this feeling just RUSH over you like a wave? I don't (or hope) that it's not just me.

Toodles<3

New giveaways!

Click here to enter: http://watercoloursky.blogspot.com/2009/11/2nd-anniversary-giveaway.html you can win a china glaze nail polish, Pomegrante Lip butter and a dior lipstick.


Click here to enter: http://paintedladyfingers.blogspot.com/2009/11/contest-diana-her-hound-and-points-of.html You can win a set of nail art pens

Hello everyone I'm back

So lately, I've been MIA because I've been on 2 college visits. Let me break it down. So, on Friday morning, my family and I left at like 7 or 7:30 in the morning to go to Penn State. It was like a 5 hour drive. Yuck. The tour took like 3 hours. One for like the presentation and another 2 for the actual tour.Then, we drove 2 more hours to outside of Pittsburgh. Then, the next day, saturday, we drove another 2 hours to Carnegie Mellon. The whole debacle was maybe 2 to 3 hours. Then, we drove 5 more hours back to a hotel that was outside of NJ. THEN, we drove like 2 or 3 more hours home.

No time to blog.

I will be back with more stuff!

Toodles<3

New contest!

Enter here:http://simplethingshere.blogspot.com/2009/11/personalized-ornament-giveaway.html to win a personalized ornament!

New contests!

Click here for a chance to win a benefit powderazzi palette!
http://laurensloves.blogspot.com/2009/10/competition-time.html

Need to follow and comment

Click here for a chance to win 2 lippies and more!

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Need to follow and comment

Tutorial: A Lovely Lace Covered Bag

My Bestie's birthday is coming up soon, so I decided to make her something. After hemming and hawing about what to make, I came up with a small purse! For all you sewing-challenged people, this requires bascially minimal sewing. I used mostly hot glue for the whole project

What you need:

• Hot glue gun with a lot of glue pieces
• Cardboard (thick and thinner pieces if you want to make this sturdy. If you want this more as a wall or desk decoration, like what I wanted to do, then just thin cardboard will be okay.)
• Lace, or old lace tights
• Fabric, 2 kinds. One for lining the inside and one for the outside.
• Needle and thread (Just to make the lining on the inside)
• A ribbon
• Button that is not flat. It should have a loop thing.

Instructions:

• First, cut out your pieces. You need a large back, a half front (so you can look in the bag. If you want 2 large backs and fronts its okay too), 2 sides, 1 bottom and 1 lid. The reason why I'm detaching the back from the lid is so that you can open the bag easier.
  

• Now, cover each piece with a piece of fabric. Hot glue the edges of the fabric to the back of the cardboard piece. Notice that I have taped the lid and the back together. There should be a small gap between the lid and the back.
  


• Now, take the lace and cover the lid/back piece. If you want to cover more, okay.
  


• Nice! We need to make the lining now. How you do this is that you take some stuffing/ old soft fabric, and cut it to that it fits the cardboard piece. Then, you cover it with your inside lining. This you have to sew together. If you want to hot glue them, go ahead! Then I went an extra step and made a quilt pattern on it by sewing it on after I sewed the lining together. Note, you should not make a lining for the lid. That will be made by just gluing a piece of fabric on the top.
  
  
• Then to make the handles, I braided 3 pieces of fabric together and glued them to the sides, before the lining. Then I glued all the lining onto everything.
  
• This part will take some time and effort. Once you have all the pieces, just start glueing them together. I recommend glueing them together on the outside as well on the inside, meaning put glue on the outside and inside of the project. Fill in any holes with hotglue. This is what it should look like so far.

• Now, take your piece of ribbon and glue a button on it. It should not be a flat button. After, glue it onto the entire back/lid of the purse. Do not glue the very bottom edge of the ribbon. We're still inserting something there.
  


• See that little gap at the very bottom? Shove a long piece of ribbon on the bottom and glue shut. To close this, wrap it all the way around the bag and then wrap the remaning ribbon around the ribbon. It's like closing a manila envelope.
  
  

Tell me what you thinkg! Toodles<3

Almay Haul for 8 dollars!

Recently, I went to CVS (like yesterday) to find that there was a BOGOF sale on all Almay items. Naturally, I decided to buy a new mascara and something else. I found that there was this double package where if you buy an eyeshadow, there was this eyeliner attached onto the package. I got the Intense I-color eyeshadow trio for blue eyes and there was a Brown Topaz I-color eyeliner attached. I bought a lengthening mascara in black, non-waterproof. Onto the review!

This was the eyeshadow trio. The eyeshadows are so soft! I love them! Except for a tiny problem, I sort of have dupes for them already. Let's see them.

Going from left to right, Almay eyeshadow, Revlon matte eyeshadow in Rich Sable, and a sample of a Estee Lauder quad eyeshadow. You can't see it but the Almay is a nice, bronzey color that doesn't go orange on my skin. I would like it to be more shimmery but it isn't matte like it it looks here in this picture. It's a nice color that I like to use over the eyeliner (review in a second).

On the left is the Almay and on the righ is the physicians formula Baked Smokes, darkest color. You can see that the Almay is slightly BLUER than the baked smokes. I don't like the baked smokes as much because they aren't as soft.





The bottom is the lightest color in the Baked Smokes trio and the top is the Almay. It's a nice frosty white. I love it so much. It'll be good as a inner corner color.

Eyeliner time! I love the color so much! I wish that the eyeshadowe was like this. It's a really bronze, shimmery color. It's a automatic twist up so no more sharpening. The formula is nice and creamy, but surprisingly, it didn't melt all over my face (I use eyeshadow over eyeliner all the time). However, it did decrease in intensity so I'm slightly disappointed by that.




I know that it looks nasty here, but I swear, it's better than that. Think of UD baked. I think. Now, for the mascara. I got the lengthening one, and it claims to lengthen by 70%. I really think that it does it's job. It's pretty smudgeproof for a non-waterproof mascara, which is nice because my eyes water like CRAZY. It's ridiculous. The brush is this humungous thing that is larger than L'Oreal's Voluminous mascara. The brush reminds me of the L'Oreal collegen mascara. Very nice.

Overall, I'm very pleased with my 8 dollar purchase of eyeliner, shadow and mascara. Personally, I will definiately get this mascara and try out new shadows. The eyeliner, well, if there is a BOGOF sale or it comes in a double package again or if it's clearance. I don't think that it's worth 8 dollars. If it were like 5, sure, it's good enough for that. Anyway, good job Almay! I'll definately be trying new products.
Toodles<3