Sew Simple | Laptop Sleeve DIY

Hello lovely reader! As mentioned in previous posts, I wanted to give myself the challenge and goal of learning to sew this summer. After a couple projects, I am quite pleased with my creations and my abilities with a sewing machine. For this post I wanted to share something that I feel I have somewhat mastered after making two that turned out great. It is a zippered laptop sleeve.

Now when I first got my laptop I really wanted a cute case, but after looking around endlessly online I couldn't find what I was looking for, and gave up the hunt for a while. Last week though, I was on my current favorite blog called Merrick's Art looking for something else to try and make. While scrolling, I stumbled upon this super chic fold over clutch tutorial. I still may make the clutch but it got me thinking that I could probably make my own laptop sleeve. I did some searching and found a tutorial on a blog called Stitched by Crystal. Thus my laptop case making began.

So far I have made one for myself and one for my friend for her birthday. The first one took me about 45 minutes or so to make. However for the second one, once I knew what I was doing, I had the whole thing completed in about 30 minutes. So you will see that it is pretty easy to learn how to make this practical little item. Since I used Crystal's step by step I am going to link her post rather then take her material. (No pun intended) I will show you some pics of the steps for reference, as well as the finished product.

"STITCHED by Crystal: Tutorial: Zippered laptop sleeve"

If you give this a go, I would love to see what you create. Happy stitching! Xx

Makeup Maintenance: Cleaning Brushes

With a new year coming comes a fresh start, I have been taking to that idea literally by cleaning and organizing! Cleaning my makeup brushes is something that I do way less than I should, so today I finally took the time to clean them, which quite honestly is not that hard to do because it doesn't take long to do, I just have been putting it off. (Should I read blogs or clean my makeup brushes...hmm) Today however I did not allow myself to get distracted and I even took pictures! So I figured I'd put them together in a little tutorial. Enjoy! 

You will need: 

-dirty makeup brushes

-baby shampoo

-an old towel

-lukewarm running water

I usually start out with the bigger brushes, so the first thing to do it put some shampoo in the palm of your hand (about the size of a quarter). 

Then, wet the brush under the faucet and place it in the shampoo, making small circles as if you were painting your palm. 

After you have "shampooed" your brush, continue painting circles, but this time do it underneath the faucet to rinse. You can also squeeze the brush from top to bottom to make sure you get as much of the water out as possible. Once you have finished that, take the old towel and roll one end of it up. Shape the bristles to how you want and put the brush facing downward against the roll. Leave it to dry. This will keep the water from going to the glue in the brush and ruining it. 

Repeat these steps for each of your brushes. As the brushes get smaller use less shampoo. A dime size of shampoo for the smaller brushes is what I would suggest. 

Hope this helps! Xx