Bleach Dip Dyed Shirts

One of my most recent projects was dip dyeing one of my shirts with bleach. It was a simple, one afternoon project, and it's a great way to transform a boring, solid colored shirt into something unique and beautiful. Another great thing about this project is you probably have everything you need already in your home. 

Materials

- solid colored shirt

- bleach

- water

- vinegar

- plastic bag

- rubber bands

The first thing you need to do is decide how far up the shirt you want the bleach to go. Put a plastic bag around the part of the shirt you want to stay the original color. I then added a rubber band a couple inches down from the bag, and another one a couple inches down from the first one. 

Now you are ready to bleach your shirt. I used a 1 part bleach to 4 parts water solution. You just need to put the end of the shirt in the solution, and the bleach will travel up, creating the dip dye effect. I left my shirt in for about 30 minutes, but I recommend checking on it often, and taking it out when you like the way it looks. When you are satisfied with the color, take off the plastic bag and rubber bands and rinse the shirt with water. Then let it soak in a 1 part vinegar to 1 part water solution for 10 minutes. This stops the bleach from continuing to bleach the shirt. After the 10 minutes rinse the shirt again, then let it air dry. After it is dry, wash it alone in a washer and dryer. Then it's ready to wear!

As you can see from the pictures, the two shirts turned out very differently even though I did the exact same thing with each. The purple shirt stayed the original color above the first rubber band, turned a medium purple below the second rubber band, and in between the rubber bands it turned a light purple. The navy blue shirt turned red on the bottom, stayed navy on the top, and looks tie dyed in between. I had no idea that navy blue turned red with bleach! Not knowing how your shirt will turn out adds to the fun of this project. So far it's been a nice surprise every time :)

Summer

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.”

 -John Lubbock

Beaded Leather Wrap Bracelet

Close-up of finished bracelet

The bracelets that my mom and I have made. This photo is a great example
of different types of leather and beads you can use. The one on the left is
jasper, and the other two are different types of turquoise.

I just made one of these as a birthday present for a friend, and my mom and I made some for ourselves a few months ago. I love the way they look, and how simple and fun (though time consuming) they are to make, so I thought I'd share some pictures and instructions.



Materials

• 2mm Leather Cord (the formula for the amount you need is below)
• 4-6mm Beads (the amount of beads you need depends on how many times you want your bracelet to wrap around your wrist)
• Beading Thread
• Needle (a special beading needle works best, but any needle will work as long as it is thin enough to pass through the beads)
• Scissors
• Clipboard
• Cotton Ball (optional)

Materials

Setting up

First, you need to find how much leather you need for your bracelet. A loose measurement of my wrist is 7", so I will use 7" in the formula, just substitute your wrist measurement for 7". The formula is: 7 x number of times you want the bracelet to wrap around your wrist x 2 (the leather is doubled) + 7 (extra for loop and knots). All the bracelets I have made have been double wrap, so I needed 35" of leather for a double wrap bracelet for my 7" wrist. 

Now cut your string (I used over 20 feet for a double wrap bracelet), fold it in half, thread your needle, and knot the ends together. Fold the leather in half, and holding the leather and the end of the thread with the knot together, tie a knot, leaving a loop big enough for the knot at the other end to go through.  Clip the loop onto the clip board so that the bracelet is held in place while you are working. You can put a cotton ball between the clip and your leather, so that the clip doesn't leave marks on the leather. You are now ready to start stringing the beads.

Stringing the beads

Adding a bead

over, under, over, under

Before you start adding beads, you are going to take the thread over the right strand of leather, under the left strand of leather, over the left, under the right. Pull the string tight each time. Repeat this a few times to secure the thread and leather. This should create figure eights holding the two strands of leather together. You are now ready to add beads. It's just the same as what you were doing before but you go over the right, bring the thread through a bead, under the left, over the left, bring the thread back through the same bead, under the right. You now have one bead on your bracelet. Repeat this process with each bead until the bracelet has reached the desired length.

Finishing your bracelet

To finish your bracelet do some figure eights without beads, just like you did after you first attached the thread. Then tie a knot with the leather and thread, and trim off the excess.

Close-up of knots and lashing

I hope you have fun making and wearing your bracelet! :)

Animals Everywhere!

Four new foster kittens! 4-week-old sisters Zia (brown tabby), Zelda (gray tabby), Zoe (white and gray), and Zara (brown tabby and white). We got them on Wednesday and, although they were very hissy at first, which is to be expected of kittens who were rescued from who knows where and then shuffled between homes, they are now becoming very sweet and playful. When we fist got them they were covered in fleas so we had to keep them separate from the other kitties while we treated them. Now we are hoping to move them in with Kora and Mako this afternoon after Karma and Chi head off to their adoption fair (hopefully they will find homes this weekend!) As you can see from the second pic, Karma and Chi easily welcomed Kora and Mako, and they have definitely enjoyed playing and cuddling with each other this week. Caring for 7 kittens and a cat has definitely kept me extremely busy lately. Seems like I've been doing nothing but feeding cats :) The third picture is another animal visitor that I am very excited about. I just put out a hummingbird feeder a couple days ago, and this little guy was our first customer!

New Kittens!

Two new additions to our foster kitten family: Kora (the calico girl) and Mako (the orange tabby). I guess when you let brothers name kittens they get named after cartoon characters :) Karma and Chi are still looking for homes but we decided we had a little extra room in our home and hearts, and these two are fitting in perfectly. Mako and Kora are unrelated, and we are guessing that Mako is about 4 weeks old, and Kora around 3 weeks. Mako is doing great; he is eating well, playing, and purring. Kora is doing okay, but she's still a bit dehydrated and fragile. At first Chi was very jealous of the two (after being a slightly spoiled only child for so long), but now he has found a playmate in Mako, and he is loving his role of big brother. Mako and Chi are always chasing each other around and wrestling. Chi knows to be a little gentle, and Mako doesn't seem to be at all intimidated by wrestling with a kitten more than twice his size. Kora isn't quite up to joining in the rough housing yet. Right now she just loves being held, she is super sweet, and probably the cutest kitten I've ever seen! Karma still isn't quite sure what to think of having two new kittens. At first she pretty much pretended they didn't exist, but this morning she was letting them nurse for a bit and grooming them. (While Chi glared from a distance ;) I'm sure I'll have more pics and stories soon!