Hello Dazzlers, here is something for you to watch, share and be encouraged by.
Always remember that you are awesome – so go, create your Space Jam and dance about it.
A Prep Talk from Kid President to You, by SoulPancake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l-gQLqv9f4o
Since Christmas, having been inspired by beautiful decorations, ribbons and wrapping, my favourite accessory has been my slowing growing collection of jewel coloured, ribbon bow ties; worn either with a loose shirt over skinny jeans or a tailored shirt and trouser combination. This is a tutorial to show you how to make your own, and if you already have a sewing kit you only need to buy some ribbon! They are cute, cheap and chic… (and homemade!)
You will need:
30cm of ribbon you like the look of.
A sewing pin.
A needle and thread of any colour.
A safety pin.
Start by making 2 loops in your ribbon, cross one loop over the other and pull it back underneath, like you are tying a knot with your 2 loops . This will start to form the shape of your bow.
Pull it tight and as you do so, you may have to move your ribbon around so it forms the bow shape you are after. Also you don’t want to pull it too tight or else the middle section will look like a little knot and the bow loops will crease and loose there shape (this bit often takes me more than one attempt!).
Your next step is to secure all the overlapping pieces of ribbon in place using a sewing needle. However, try to make sure you do not put the needle through the top layer of ribbon in the centre of your bow, or through the front of the loops.
Here I have made sure the the needle only comes out through the back of the centre of my bow.
(And you can just about see in this photograph that it has gone in through the middle of the base of the loops, behind the top layer of the bow’s centre.)
Now if you turn your bow over so the front is facing you, you should not be able to see the needle coming through any of the ribbon.
Next sew the overlapping layers of ribbon together (again trying not to go through the top layer in the centre of your bow, or through the front of your loops).
After a little bit of practise I found that the best way to do this is to sew along the edge of the centre section of the bow, attaching it to the 2 loops.
Using the safety pin attach the bow to your shirt, just below the top button hole.
And finally wear and enjoy, and don’t be afraid to mix and match with a bit of colour – let brighten up this cold, grey January!
Happy New Year Dazzlers!!
But I’m going to start this post with a little confession: I’m a bit of a New Year sceptic… It always seems that no matter what I promise myself or what resolutions I make at New Year, on 1st January not much has changed and by 1st February it has completely gone out of the window!
BUT NOT THIS YEAR!!!
This year I am taking New Year resolutions seriously, because in June I am finishing university, this gives me 5 full months to get out of ‘student mode’. To start this off I am going to try and take on five positive habits by the end of my student days; one for each month. They are only small, but therefore sustainable, which is an idea I’ve taken from a TED talk by Matt Cutts.
Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days, from TED.
So the five habits….
January: Get up when my alarm goes off (instead of hitting the snooze button 5 times).
February: Drink 1.2 litres of water a day.
March: When the gym membership runs out – do not renew it! Save money, but still take regular exercise.
April: Eat at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day.
Finally May will bring a serious challenge: “Never leave that till tomorrow, which you can do today” – no more procrastination!
Hopefully at the end of each month I’ll have made a new, small but good habit that will contribute to either my health/wellbeing or productivity. I’ll keep you all posted on how this all goes! Are any of you Dazzlers starting any resolutions tomorrow morning?!
Happy 2013 Everybody!!!
Last night I was having a little peruse of TED and came across a video titled ‘Love Letters to Strangers’ by Hannah Brencher, who has started an inspiring global initiative called The World Needs More Love Letters, based in New York. This acts as a hub to send handwritten letters to those in need of encouragement and love as well as a centre that track of letters and notes that have been left and found in coffee shops, trains, libraries (anywhere!), spreading love and goodwill to strangers around the world.
You can read more about this beautiful idea on their website here
And you can see Hannah’s talk at TED@New York here
This has truly inspired me so… I’ve just written my first ever love letter to a stranger. I’m going to take it to my campus library and slot it into one of the course books for the teacher training.
I’m in my final year now of teacher training so I know how gruelling the course can be, and at times the thought of actually being a teacher seems daunting; something you’d want to run away from (very far and very fast!). So I wrote this note which, I hope will be an encouragement to someone who’s also feeling like that, as they struggle to get their lesson plans done on time.
Although at first writing to a complete stranger was a bit of a strange, once I’d finished I felt a bit giddy – I have no idea who will read my letter or when, I can just hope that it will brighten someone’s day and spread a bit of love – and being able to do that for someone you’ve never met before, just through a note hidden in a book is a very exciting idea.
As some of you will know I am a little bit of a fan of dip dying at the moment (you can see the first dip dye tutorial here)! So in this tutorial instead of adding dye we are taking it away with a bleach dip dye, inspired by a pair of Topshop leggings.
The inspiration:
Photo from topshop.com
And the final product….!
(please note that this tutorial and the timings used are for working with black/dark grey denim so if you are using blue or a lighter colour denim you may need to shorten the times used).
You will need:
- A plastic bucket.
- Rubber gloves.
- A 750ml bottle of thick bleach.
- A trouser coat hanger, with plastic clips.
-A pair of black/dark grey jeans.
Then follow these steps:
1. Hang your jeans on the coat hanger.
2. Empty the bottle of bleach into the bucket and fill the rest of the bucket up with water.
3. Wearing the rubber gloves, dunk the ends of your jeans into the bucket up to the point you’d like them to be bleached (please note that the bleach will get soaked up by the fabric about an inch or so above the line of the water/bleach mixture).
4. Now you have a choice – do you want a clean cut line between the two colours? Or a distressed line (like in the above picture)? If you’d like a clean cut line hang up your jeans whilst they are socking, for a more distressed look, hang them over the side of the bucket.
5. Now leave the ends of your jeans to soak, and keep an eye on them, until they are an ombre colour (mine took 2 hours!). If you are going for the distressed look you will need to move the jeans out of the liquid by about and inch every half an hour or so, so a different part of the material is resting on the side of the bucket – this will give it a less clean cut, more graduated effect.
6. Once your jeans are an ombre colour take them out of the liquid and hang them up (do not rinse – leave the bleach mixture on them!), empty the bucket and put in underneath your jeans to catch the drips.
7. Leave them hanging overnight and the ombre should have turned grey. If they are still ombre or you want a lighter colour then you will need to do another dip in a bleach/water mixture.
Then wash your jeans on their own, leave to dry and enjoy them!!
N.B. If you are my little sister, a child or young person please get adult help when using strong chemicals like bleach!
Last Friday saw the release of Madagascar 3 in the UK, and I think it is safe to say that I was more excited about seeing it than any child in the cinema! So I decided to take the Polka Dot, Afro Circus trailer as inspiration for some nail art which I have been asked to share as a tutorial – let me know what you think! Enjoy!
Madagascar 3 – Afro Circus Remix From Dreamworks.
Penguins with afros on the thumb nail, based on this picture:
Photo credit: Dreamworks Animation.
And polka dots on the nails
So we will start with the penguins. You will need:
Apply a base coat so you have a smooth surface to work on and the start by using the white nail varnish and draw half an oval on your thumb nail.
Then using a dotting tool, or a tooth pick and the black nail varnish draw a line around the white oval.
Then add the wings on either side.
Put a large drop of white nail varnish on the dotting tool, or tooth pick and make two large dots next to each other near the top of the white oval, this is the start of the eyes. Then put small black dots in the centre of the white dots, to make the pupils.
To finish of the penguin’s face use the dotting tool and the orange nail varnish and draw a small triangle under the eyes, to make the beak.
Then using the dotting tool or tooth pick draw on the afro, by making short, wide lines sticking out of the penguin’s head, in the different colours you have decided to use.
Then when the nail varnish has completely dried, apply a top coat. On your fingernails paint a white coat and once dry, use the nail varnish brushes to carefully put on the polka dots randomly across the nails. I have used blue, red, orange, yellow, and purple to match the colours in the penguin’s afro and beak.
Apply a top coat to protect your work, and enjoy your afro, polka dot circus nails!
Photo: Karl Lagerfeld/Chanel.
Friday saw the beginning of The Little Balck Jacket : Chanel’s Classic Revisited exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London, after travelling the globe from Tokyo, through New York, Taipei and Hong Kong The Little Black jacket is in London until 28th October before continuing to the other side of the world.
A panoramic view of the final room of the exhibition.
Photgrpahed by Karl Lagerfeld and styled by Carine Roitfeld the show is made up of 113 images all featured around a black, tweed, box jacket. This piece was designed in 1953 by Coco Chanel, who at the age of 70 had again defied the fashion movements of the time.
Fashion in the 1950s was largely driven by Christian Dior’s first couture show in Paris in 1947, launching what was known as the ‘New Look’ that consisted of wide ballerina skirts that pulled in at the waist and exagerated the female silhouette. However, Coco Chanel launched her range of easy to wear, non restricting, clean cut suits, bringing a more modern and edgy look to the era, and although the fashion critics at the time did not like this – they where proved wrong, as this jacket was a key part of her collection then, and is still today a central piece of the Chanel ready to wear range today.
The exhibition clearly captures the timelessness of this jacket along with its versatility and ‘anyone-can-wear-this-ness’, as it is modeled by both men and woman across the generations from a variety of professions.
These are a couple of my favorites from the exhibition:
Photo: Karl Lagerfeld/Chanel
Classical violinist Charlie Siem:
Photo: Karl Lagerfeld
Carine Roitfeld dress as Coco Chanel:
Photo: Karl Lagerfeld
I was back in London for the weekend so I took my little sister to go and see the exhibition – we both really enjoyed it and I can highly recommend it for those dazzlers who will be in London this month.
The Little Sister – Outside the Saatchi Gallery in Duke of York Square.
