Strictly Come Hairstyles

Saturday night is not  about the rumba, tango and foxtrot, it's strictly about the hair baby! We love witnessing the hair transformations that take place on every contestant each week. Hairspray at the ready, here are some of our favourite styles from this series.

Susanna Reid Strictly Come Dancing

Fabulously versatile long brunette locks

Natural style

Ponytail plait

Curls galore!

Pinned up beauty

Rachel Riley Strictly Come Dancing

Sort-haired blonde bombshell

Ponytail hairpiece

Accessorised

Training ponytail

Sophie Ellis-Bextor Strictly Come Dancing
Flowing brunette hair styled in different ways 

High up-do

Effortless loose curls

60s faux bob

V-shaped fringe

• Knowledge of Auto Car Insurance RateInformations

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Silver Glow Fur Jacket

Today I finished my first glow-fur project.  It's a glowing silver-and-white fur lined jacket, and the cuffs and collar fur glow with delicious rainbow colors and animations.

I used Adafruit's Gemma chip along with their neopixels and neopixel strips.  The jacket is powered by a lithium polymer battery that's surprisingly light and really strong.  I think I'm hooked on lithium polymer.  This thing is awesome.

This jacket was kind of a nightmare to make.  Electronics can be so petulant if they don't get exactly what they want, when they want it, and prototypes are notoriously fiddly anyway even without the electricity to muddle things up.  I remade almost every part of this jacket at least twice, and I'm still not 100% satisfied with it, but I am 500% HAPPY with it.

The cool thing about using the Adafruit pixels is that each one is individually addressable.  What does that mean?  It means that I can plug this jacket into my Mac, and tell it what color combinations I want, or what animations it should run, or how bright it should be or any number of wonderful things.  If I want it fading from purple to red to purple I can do that, or I can let the rainbow colors shine.  

I've also got the option of adding on motion sensors, color sensors, or GPS sensors (so I can have it light up when I get to Starbucks, or whatever - I haven't quite figured out the why's of that one yet).  There's so much to learn.  It's a little overwhelming. 

But right now I have a sparkly rainbow light up jacket.  Squee!

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Adventures of The Inappropriate Giant Purple Squid Pillow

I woke up in the middle of the night and heard a very odd sucking noise in the bathroom.  Bleary-eyed, I stumbled in there and saw something purple and squishy slurping up out of the drain.  I don't know how he got there or where he came from, but soon my giant bathtub was filled with purple madness.  He sat there, blinking innocently at me.

I backed slowly into the hall, giving him space.   He seemed harmless enough, and only a little bit lost and confused.  Even in my bleary-eyed state I could see that he seemed tired.  

I invited him downstairs and offered him sustenance.  It seems he was more in need of a comfortable, safe place to rest and refresh his obviously gigantic and under stimulated brain.

I could see his eyes light up with wonder and fascination as he paged his way quickly through Bilbo's Unexpected Journey.  His large cranial cavity began to pulse excitedly as his tentacles flipped the pages with rapid excitement.

He slurped into the office and began researching, muttering quietly to himself as he gathered his thoughts.  I tried to peek over his shoulder but, since he lacks shoulders, I couldn't catch a glimpse of his focus, though I thought I spotted him plotting a course on Google Maps to a dark, watery garden.

Determined, he slurped into the garage and tried desperately to make a break for freedom.  He was thwarted only by his inability to find the button for the garage door.  I did not offer my assistance.

Distracted for a moment, I turned away.  When I looked back, the giant squid had appropriated a more suitable mode of transport.  The last I saw of him, he was pedaling quickly and expertly down the street, heading into an unknown adventure.  

Giant Squid Pillow How-To

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Pixie Trend

It's officially upon us, the pixie hair trend is spreading faster than wildfire with recent devotees including Pamela Anderson and Jennifer Lawrence. More and more people are going for the chop including these lovely ladies:

Julie Etchingham, ITV News
Blonde Boy to Boyishly Short

Katy FawcettShort Hair Love

Miley CyrusPixie Versatility

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Update on my fancy Light-up Shoes

I've been modifying my light-up shoes and now they're extra-awesome.

I got some new velostat, which works a treat.  The velostat is a pressure sensitive material which basically gets turned into a sensor, so the shoes light up when I step down, instead of just being on all the time.  Yay for interactive stuff!!

I have to say, interactivity is my favorite thing about learning all this arduino voodoo.  I have made loads of web pages and done plenty of online imaging and making-of-pretty-things that appear on my computer screen in the "virtual world".  I've also made plenty of fashion and clothing from drawings or patterns in the "real world".  The thing that's floating my boat about arduino is the connection between the two.. I make a computer program and it changes something in the real world instead of just on-screen.  This, is magic.  

I can't wait to start adding accelerometers and motion sensors and stuff to my clothing.  I also want to make stuff that's remote controllable like my fairy lights.  The learning curve is pretty steep, but I'm finding myself in that exciting phase of discovery where every project opens up a whole new world and things are actually starting to make sense, instead of just respond when I poke at them.  I've got a very long way to go, but I'm having an absolute blast along the way.

So!  Here are my light-up shoes in new-and-improved action.  I used the firewalker code from Adafruit, and tweaked it so it works with the gemma chip I'm using.  I also figured out how to slow it way down - the code is written for a series of around 50 LEDs and I'm just using 5, so the animation went by too fast on the 5 LEDs.  I also tweaked the color a whole lot, but then ended up just changing it back to the original red-yellow-black-with-sparklies because, well, it's AWESOME.

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