Top Five Face-Loving Eco-Friendly Makeup Brushes You Must Have

Think Green in Your Makeup Routine for Pro Makeup Results

The right tools make all the difference when it comes to a perfect canvas for makeup.



Copyright: flaivoloka

I once discounted all the makeup brushes, eschewed extra wands and tools. A waste of money, I thought.

Makeup brushes are actually so useful that I don't know how I did my makeup properly without them. Earth Day and beyond, I think Green year round, and my must-have top five makeup brushes reflect this.

The Brushes You Need

Yes, need. Even a set of 5 makeup brushes will cover your powder, blush, shadow, contour, and flat shading which are vital to a polished beauty look.

1. ecoTOOLS® Large Powder Brush - Powder sets a smooth canvas for your makeup without smothering your skin and clogging pores. You must start your makeup this way for a great base, and this is the makeup brush you need. Eco-friendly bamboo handle and recycled steel head, the number of bristles are as fun to play with as use. On the brush's page you'll find videos how to best use this brush, too.

2. Bdellium Tools Pink Bambu Slanted Contour Brush - Once your canvas is ready, play up the dramatic shadows of your face with a bronzer and this slanted contour brush. Pay attention to under cheekbones, the jaw line, and other areas that naturally attract dramatic shadow. The angle on this 100% cruelty free, vegan, hypoallergenic and bamboo handled brush make it easy.

3. Sonia Kashuk Bamboo Chic Flat Shader Brush - A good shader brush like this one will help you add specific flat shadow and highlight to areas of your face that need just a bit more contrast - a definite favorite for eye creases as well.

4. Beauty Blender - Once my areas of color are set, blending the hard lines is my next step. It helps everything look more natural, and the powder base will keep the blended color in place. The Beauty Blender does this easy, ergonomically, and without no latex.

5. Bdellium Tools Pink Bambu Large Shadow Brush - In typical Bdellium style with vegan soft bristles, bamboo handles, and boasting both hypoallergenic cleanliness and 100% cruelty free conscience, the large shadow brush is everything you need to finish your face off right (before putting on the final touches of mascara and lipstick of course). All it takes is a sweeping brush or two to create a dramatic base color on your lids that the shadow's included brushes will fill in nicely. Just make sure you use the blender once you're done for a set and perfectly glam look!

Crochet and Knit Pattern Template: Design a Fresh Minimalist Template to Boost Sales

Ready Your Crochet or Knit Pattern for Selling Online Using the Minimalist Template

Designing a professionally clean and minimalistic crochet or knit pattern template is easily done in a few minutes with Microsoft Word or a similar word processor.

The marketplace for selling online patterns that you have created is growing rapidly with the popularity of sites like Etsy.com. 

What holds most people back from either trying to sell or from having success selling their crochet and knit patterns? A professional layout.

If you sell crochet or knit patterns, this guide to a professional pattern layout is precisely what you need to get the most out of your online sales. We'll cover the complete design of the pattern using Microsoft Word (or any similar word processing program).

Seriously, if you are a crochet or knit pattern seller, this guide will help no matter how experienced or inexperienced you are in the design of layouts that will sell. In this guide, we'll focus on a minimalist template that puts the focus on photography and instructions, leaving the details subtle so they don't detract from the beauty of your crochet or knit pattern.

Why the Minimalist Pattern Template?

The Minimalist Pattern Template puts a strong focus on photography and instructions. What happens using this layout is that the viewer is immediately drawn in by the finished product, and then eager to read the clearly available instructions.

Pros: The minimalist structure makes the pattern extremely easy to read, and the finished product is put on display in a way that will keep the user of your crochet or knit pattern eager to keep going. Because of the layout, it is also very easy to keep instruction pages to a minimum. Psychologically, this affects your pattern user; because the instructions are all on one page, for example, the project doesn't feel nearly as daunting. Major brownie points that will pay off in return customers.

Cons: You absolutely must have professional looking photos that will draw the viewer in. You can't get away with poor lighting or a display that isn't right for the product you're showing off. The crochet or knit pattern viewer should be stuck on the photograph, and then they will be eager to purchase your pattern and dive into the instructions.

Design the Minimalist Crochet or Knit Pattern Template

To create the template, you will need a good word processor. The example illustrations attached to this article use Microsoft Word 2007. This version of Microsoft Word incorporates a PDF generator. If you don't have this option in your word processor, you will definitely need to consider grabbing PDF writing software that is compatible with the word processor you use. Selling your finished pattern in a PDF format will also boost sales because it is accessible to the most people and offers security options.

Instructions are written for Word 2007; you may need to adjust some instructions to find the right tools.

The coolest thing about the Minimalist Pattern Template is that it really only takes a few steps to design, and using it is easy because you just need to drop things into their proper place. So, let's dig into this baby and get to designing.

The Cover Page

Our cover page will be kept extremely clean, placing full focus on photography and subtly entering details that are necessary.

1. Fire up your word processor. Go ahead and play it safe by hitting 'Enter' a few times, creating new paragraphs so you can move around easily if something goes wonky.

2. First, create a single-cell table. Don't worry about the borders or anything else at this point. Go ahead and click inside the cell, and insert the photograph of the finished product you're selling the pattern of. Then, right-click the photograph and hover over 'Text Wrapping'. Choose the 'Behind Text' option.

At this point, your tables and cells should be set and your photograph (the highlight!) set behind text.

3. Now, we're going to create cells to fit our subtle content in. Click once beside the photograph and insert a new table that is one cell wide and four cells tall. Again, don't worry about the borders yet. Click in the top cell and type 'sample title text'. You may need to change the color of the text in order to really see it at this point, depending on the color of your photograph. Reference the second illustration attached to this article.

4. Before we play with text, let's set a border to the top so that our title is a little less subtle. To do this, highlight (select) the top cell that you just typed in, right-click it, and choose 'Borders and Shading'. Use the Shading option to choose a color that is complimentary (for the minimalist design, a complimentary or even matching color works best) to fill the cell. DO NOT remove any borders yet - they make things much easier to adjust. Once your cell's background color is set, you may need to adjust the width of your inside cells to fit your photograph. Do this now.

The completed cover page, with cell lines highlighted so that you can easily see how it is laid out.

5. It's time to enter all our text and play around with fonts. For the minimalist pattern template, clean fonts without a lot of swirls or extra lines tend to work best. The only place, if any, that you have fancy looking text should be in your logo. Text to enter: In the first cell, replace 'sample title text' with the actual title. The second cell should contain a short 1-2 sentence description that 'sells' the pattern. In the third cell, just keep hitting the 'Enter' key until your final cell is near the bottom of your photograph. The fourth cell contains your logo and/or name and copyright info. As you go through the text entering, you may need to adjust your photo by dragging it back up to the top of the outside cell. Reference the third illustration attached to this article (cell lines have been colored to make them easier to see).

6. When you're happy with the overall look, highlight all the cells and copy-paste them on to the next page in your document. Then, go back to the cover page and highlight the cells again. Right-click, choose 'Borders and Shading', and remove all borders. Reference the fourth illustration attached to this article. Voila! Cover page is done. Don't forget to save your pattern template at this point.

The finished cover page with all cell lines removed, ready to go!

The Instruction Page

Typically, you won't want to use the minimalist pattern template if it will take much more than one page for the instructions. Due to the layout of the instructions, you can fit a ton of info on a single page - but if it's going to take more than one page, you might seriously consider using a different pattern template.

With your template practically designed and your photo in place, this will take seconds to complete.

1. First, select your photograph and delete it by hitting the backspace key on your keyboard. If any text has 'disappeared' because it's white, change the color to black. The top cell will remain exactly as it is - don't edit it. In the second cell, replace the description with the pertinent pattern information: skill level, measurements, materials needed and exact brands and types used in the photograph, hook size(s), and gauge. In the third cell, insert a new table that is two cells wide and once cell tall. Copyright information should stay the same in the footer, but if you included a logo on the cover page you'll want to remove it from this page.

2. It's time to enter your pattern. Start in the left cell in your center table, carrying text over to the right cell when the left cell has pushed your bottom text to the end of the page. Don't have a pattern to enter right now but want to see what it looks like with text? No problem! Use the lorem ipsum generator freely available here.

3. Remove all the borders from your tables the same way you did in step 6 of the cover page. Reference the last illustration attached to this article. 

The complete instruction page, filled in temporarily with lorum ipsum text to give a feel for the completed look of how the pattern will appear once the template is used 'for real'.

You're all done! Save your work, and you have a Minimalist Pattern Template that you can use repeatedly for selling your crochet or knit patterns. The clean look and emphasis on lovely cover photos will make a huge difference in the success of your sales, too!

 

The Complete Internet Guide to the Tunisian Crochet Stitch

Everything You Will Ever Need to Know About the Tunisian Crochet Stitch - All Online

Tunisian Crochet is stunning in lighter weight yarns that offer more 'give' than thicker yarns.

Photo Copyright: ukapala

Anyone that knows me well can tell you one thing for sure: I'm avid about crochet. From the sketches for future pattern ideas that litter my crochet coffee table to the piles of skeins of yarn in varying weights and colors spilling out from beneath it, you can't miss one of my passionate hobbies.

The hard thing about crochet is simply learning the techniques and finding quality patterns. For most of us, the joy behind crochet is creation - but since it's a hobby for many, we don't always have a ton of money to spend on books teaching the coolest patterns or latest stitches. So we scour the internet, and it can be a frustrating search.

I've tried doing daily freebies before and failed so I will say this: I will post crochet freebies as often as I can. These are articles that I am not being paid for, but would very much like to share with you.

You are welcome to share more freebies in the comments - please keep them on-topic, though. 

Crochet Freebie: All About the Tunisian Crochet Stitch

The Tunisian Crochet Stitch often goes by a couple of other names: Tunisian Knit Stitch and Afghan Stitch.

Often called a knit or afghan stitch, the Tunisian Crochet Stitch is so called because it resembles a knitted stocking (stockinette) stitch that is nearly identical to the look of knitting. Some people go so far as to refer to the technique as 'knitting with a crochet hook'; while the finished fabric does resemble a knit piece, it has less stretch and is considerably thicker than a truly knit piece would have.

However, this is a beloved stitch to have in your crochet stitch repertoire because it does create such clean, knitted looking pieces. Just remember to go light on the weight of your yarn.

1. 6 Reasons Why Crochet Lovers Should Learn to Do Tunisian Afghan Stitch

2. Learning the Tunisian Crochet (Tunisian Knit) Stitch

3. Beyond the Basics - Get In-Depth With the Tunisian Stitch

4. Free Beginner Tunisian Afghan Stitch and Crochet Soap Saver Pattern

5. Free Beginner Tunisian Afghan Stitch Bookmark Pattern

6. Free Intermediate Tunisian Afghan Stitch Bag Pattern

7. Free Intermediate Tunisian Afghan Stitch "Bamboo Stitch" Beanie Pattern

8. Free Intermediate Tunisian Afghan Stitch Kindle Kozy Pattern

9. Free Advanced Tunisian Afghan Stitch Fleur de Lis Afghan Pattern

10. Free Advanced Tunisian Afghan Stitch iPod Hoodie Pattern 

Happy crocheting and I'll be back with a new 'set' of crochet goodies soon!