Day 17--Embroidery 101

30(ish) Days of Fun::Caitlin's Arrival to the First Day of School
inspired by Mighty Girl

Back in March, Sarah and I were treated to a little Carnival in honor of our birthdays. In addition to tons of homemade fair food, cheery decor, and specialty soda, the night included some lively midway games. (And prizes!) After a few turns at the dart board, I was the lucky recipient of a craft lesson from Jill. I decided to ask her to teach me a thing or two about embroidery and she happily obliged. (You can check out some of her needlework here.)

I liked embroidering well enough to order this kit from Sublime Stitching. Once it arrived, however, I never quite got around to starting any of my own projects. Until yesterday.

I decided my first project would be something for my sister's birthday. I washed and ironed a dishtowel, transferred the pattern, reacquainted myself with the basics, and then got started. Lo and behold, it really wasn't that hard. I chose a straightforward pattern (HB--my sister's nickname) and used some very simple stitches (back stitch on the H and stem stitch on the B). Several hours and several episodes of The Office later, I was finished!

Happy Birthday, Honeybunch!

Obviously, it doesn't take much to make me proud. :)

♥, Molly

Day 14--Dip-Dye Bowls

30(ish) Days of Fun::Caitlin's Arrival to the First Day of School
inspired by Mighty Girl


I have limited skills when it comes to crafts and I've never dyed anything before (ok--I got my hair dyed a few week ago) but this project was easy enough for even me to handle. Although the dipping part was fun, for some reason I just can't get over how exciting the make-your-own-dye part was. You could easily use artificial dye*, but making your own is definitely worth the extra effort.

Directions:
Adapted from the dip-dyed cups tutorial over at Design*Sponge.

1. Chop up the beets into little chunks.


2. Add 1 part beets to 2 parts water. Simmer on the stove for at least an hour. The longer they cook, the darker the dye.


3. Strain the beets and voila!--you're left with a most gorgeous color.


4. Let the dipping begin.

We used 'eco friendly' paper bowls from the grocery store.

5. Have fun!

As we discovered, there's really no right or wrong way to do it. We played around with getting the bowls wet before we dipped them, trying to make polka dots, and letting them dry right-side-up or bottom-side-up depending on which way we wanted the color to bleed.

6. Let everything dry on a color-safe surface (we used grocery sacks) while you start to tidy. Clean up is minimal, but as you can see, things have a tendency to get a bit colorful.


7. All that's left to do is dress up your pretty little bowls with some sweet summer bounty. Dish delish.



♥, Molly

*We quickly got bored with just red, so we used yellow food coloring to help expanded our color palette.