Fun with Fabrics
antiques/junking, family, flowers, parties, Silver Bella, Sugarwings
I’ve been playing hooky the last few days. Maybe a case of over confidence? I am so close to being ready for Silver Bella that I am doing fun stuff instead of finishing the work that needs to be done. I hope nothing comes up unexpectedly and I don’t have time to finish after all…
Today was a tie dye day. Normally, we do our dying outside, but the weather was just a tad to cool, so this is what my studio looks like now!
Here is a shirt I dyed last time, its an ombre type style. To get this affect, you saturate the piece with the base color of dye, then splash on colors that blend, starting with lighter at the top, darker at the bottom.
Then hang it to drip for 24 hours while the dye sets. I love the way the colors bleed as it hangs.
Last year, these hoodies were sold at Silver Bella, and I wore mine so much this year that I almost wore it out. It was white to start with and after a year of enjoyment and use, you couldn’t call it white any more. So the dye was a fix to make the shirt "new" again.
I also embellished the faded (from many washings) printed design on the back, with bronze metallic and silver glitter fabric paints.
If my other tie dye creations turn out picture worthy, I’ll show them later. Right now, they are wrapped up in rubber bands and soaking away in plastic bags.
Beth indulged me and took a hooky day shopping on Thursday, we went to the Jr. League Holiday Shop in KC. Hmm. Not my typical type of shopping, and we kept saying that we felt like tourists in another land. Everything was NEW and expensive, not stuff either of us buy!
But then, we came across Deb Dusenberry’s Curious Sofa booth like a beacon of light in the darkness we found her beautiful displays of fab finds!
See why I was so happy? Her style is so perfectly perfect. That woman has an eye for beauty, I love everything she does.
And while there, I found out that Deb is driving up from KC to go to the Silver Bella vendor night, so I made sure to invite her to visit Carol and I in our "Glitter Lounge". Carol (who is a good buddy of Deb’s) and I are stocking our room with wines and chocolates and inviting friends up to hang with us there.
(Last year, after Silver Bella vendor night, we had a cocktail in the lounge, then a slumber party in Heather Bullard’s room. This year, Heather isn’t coming, so Carol and I will be having the girly night in our room instead.)
After eating enough free samples of gift basket style food offerings to justify our tickets to the Jr. League show (every other booth there had jam and crackers or spinach dip and pretzels), Beth and I escaped the newness of the holiday mart and made a run to Mission Road Antique Mall where Beth has a booth. We did a redo on her spot (sorry, no good pics of that, too bad, she has GREAT stuff- but there are pictures on her blog) and it was joy to play with vintage goodies after an afternoon of walking through booths of brand new goods!
Remember me telling you about the art show at Blue Plate Dinners that I painted a pear for? We went to the opening last night and what a cool event! The art was all food related and displayed in one gallon zip lock bags.
Quite a few friends of mine had artwork in the show, so it was fun to hang out with them for the evening.
Notice anything odd about my picture? Well my hand is a bit colorful from the tie dying.
Most people didn’t even comment, they are so used to seeing me covered in something, glitter, paint, dye, etc. that it would cause even more comment if I showed up somewhere pristine…
Vicki gave me a blog award, how sweet. I always appreciate the kind thoughts behind those, I am sorry I don’t always follow through with them. For this one, I am supposed to list 6 things that make me happy, so I thought this photo summed up most of them-
1- Sugarwings!!!
2- flowers
3- summertime and sunshine
4- pretty colors
5- a day with the family
6- spending time in this town I am so lucky to live in, downtown Lawrence has so much to offer.
























































































