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Eek - breaking out my first pair of sandals for the year! These gold beauties from Naughty Monkey have me really excited to let my toes finally breathe. Although, I’m now really aware of how badly I need a pedicure. Yikes.
P.S - use the promo code holly for $20 off your shoe order a NaughtyMokey.com!
vest: Old Navy
tee: ASOS
sunglasses: Warby Parker
necklace: c/o UnCommon Goods
skirt: H&M
sandals: c/o Naughty Monkey
We take a trip to the zoo around this time every year (usually around my birthday), and this year we had a gorgeous day for it! and you guys, there was a one month old baby giraffe. named Max. One month old. Can you just picture the cuteness?!
shirt: Urban Outfitters
bow tie: ASOS
sunglasses: Warby Parker
jeans: Old Navy
flats: Blowfish Shoes
Here it is! My first project with my DIY-ed shibori fabric. I’ve been dreaming up a knit/woven combo Darling Ranges dress for a long time, but just needed the right fabric. I did make a few mistakes, and ended up having to add some green binding to the armholes after cutting them too much (grrrr), but, overall, I am soooooo happy with the way it turned out! Just what I’ve been picturing :)
dress: handmade // Megan Nielsen’s Darling Ranges pattern
necklace: gift
glasses: Warby Parker
shoes: c/o Swedish Hasbeens
In college, I took a fabric arts class where we did a lot of dyeing, stamping, and painting techniques. That is where I did my first Shibori dyeing, and absolutely loved the results. I’ve been dying (pun intended) to try it again ever since (um, 6 years?!).
So, if you don’t know, Shibori is a Japanese form of resistance dyeing. It involves folding, wrapping, binding, twisting, stitching…. anything to provide resistance to create patterns with the dye. There are soooooo many different methods, and different looks you can create, but I decided to show you the 3 most common ones. Read on below to see how you can do it!
supplies:
-fabric dye (liquid or powder)
-fabric
-bins or buckets
-plastic
-rubber gloves
-string or rubber bands
- 2 long planks of wood
-dowel or pvc pipe
-rocks
METHOD 1
accordion fold your fabric. Place between your two long pieces of wood and hold in place with rubber bands or string. Make sure they’re reeeeeally tight. The rubber bands / string act as resistance for the dye, so how many you use will give different design results in the end. It’s up to you!
METHOD 2
Method two is a pole wrapping technique. PVC piping is probably the easiest tool to use, but you could use and cylindrical object.
Wrap your fabric (you can do it vertically or diagonally) around the pole and hold it nice and tight. Tie a a piece of string around the top, and continue to tightly wrap down the fabric and pole. When you reach the end, knot it off. Now push and scrunch the fabric up towards the top as much as you can. Again, the tighter the compression, the better.
METHOD 3
The last method involves binding objects. The most common object used is rocks, but you can use large beads, marbles, etc.
Place each object under the fabric and bind tightly with string or rubber bands. Place each rock as close or as far apart as you’d like. Do it in one section, or cover your entire piece of fabric, like I did!
Place plastic down everywhere you are going to be dyeing. This is very important! Cover more than you think you need to, just to be safe. You don’t want to accidentally stain anything :|. And wear rubber gloves when handling the dye!
Prepare your dye in your bins or buckets according to the provided directions. You can add salt for cotton fabrics, or vinegar for silks, wools, or nylon. Immerse your fabric pieces in warm water first, and then place in your dye baths. Now, you can keep your fabric in the dye for as long as you would like, depending of the color / effect you are going for. For example, I left all three of mine in for about 7-10 minutes each. It ended up being perfect for the rock bound fabric, since I was going for more of a pink color than a deep red. But I wish I would’ve left my pole-wrapped fabric in for longer, since the majority turned out pretty light.
When it is time to remove your fabric from the dye, rinse in cold water. Remove your twine/rubber bands and rocks, etc. and continue to rinse until the water runs clear. Afterwards, make sure to wash (by hand or machine) in warm water with a little detergent, too, to eliminate all color running. let dry.
Ta-daaaaaa, you finished your shibori!
Check back tomorrow to see what I made with my first of three new fabrics. It’s pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.
You all know I love a good crafty DIY, right? I’m a maker. And I actually spend a lot of time at Michaels getting supplies. So I was so excited to be invited to join a group of Boston bloggers yesterday for a night of snacking, crafting, and touring the new look at Michaels in Saugus! We made Italian sodas, and then crafted (and laughed our way through) our own Boston skyline canvas art. I say laughed, because I totally botched mine. And Amy had to help me salvage it. Oy. P.S - you can actually reserve the Michaels craft room/event space for free.
But really, the real reason we were there was to get the inside scoop on the store’s new look. If you live in the Boston area, 27 Michaels locations are unveiling the same exact new look. So no matter what store you go in, you’ll know exactly where everything is! The aisles are now wider, the layouts make more sense, everything is brighter and more colorful, and signs are more visible - making things much easier to find. Plus, they’ve expanded their home decor section, which I really liked! So many cute coastal designs :).
Oh, and you know what else I learned? You can now shop online! Long overdue, in my opinion. But I’m so excited about it.
The 27 Boston area Michaels stores will be revealing this new look with a grand re-opening, ribbon cutting event this Sunday, May 4th at 9:45 am. So if you like to get crafty, you should head on over to your local store! They are giving away over $1000 in gift cards at each store. Be excited!
#getcraftyboston :)
This past tuesday night was spent at another amazing Boston Bloggers meet & greet. We all gathered at Highball Lounge for drinks, tater tots, photo booth action, and mingling. It was such a lovely evening! But then again, it always is when you’re in a room with all these ladies (and gents) :). Thanks Kate and Allison for throwing the party, Highball Lounge for hosting, and The Danger Booth for providing us with such hilarious photos!
***Photobooth photos by The Danger Booth
dress: Anthropologie
jacket: H&M
glasses: Warby Parker
cardigan: JCrew
scarf: thrifted
necklace: c/o L’avenir
bag: Megan Nielsen Patterns
shoes: Melissa // Shoemint
Hey look, I matched my outfit to the wall.
hashtag LoftGirl.
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You didn’t think I’d take a trip to Niagara Falls, and not post any photos of the falls, did you?! It doesn’t matter how many times I see it, or from how many different angles, I can’t help but always take a million pictures.
I realize now that I don’t have any of the American falls posted here. While Boo is more of a fan of the American falls because of all the rocks below, I much prefer the Canadian Horseshoe falls. And well, I had the camera… :).
The day before my birthday last week, Boo and I spent the day up in Niagara Falls. As soon as we crossed the border, I wanted to head straight to the Butterfly Conservatory. For all the times I’ve been to Niagara Falls, having grown up in Buffalo, I had never been to see the butterflies! It was magical, by the way. As soon as you step in, they are just fluttering around all over the place. The entire time we were in there, I just kept saying “woooooow” over and over again.
After that we headed to the Falls (I’ll share some photos tomorrow), and then spent the evening enjoying a super delicious steak dinner, and trying our luck at the casino. I wanted to pack really light, so instead of having a change of clothing for the evening, I just converted my orange dress from day to night! It’s amazing what a change of shoes and a hoodie and denim vest swapped out for a pretty shrug can do.
Somehow my camera ISO got turned way up while we were in the butterfly room, resulting in super grainy photos. That makes me so sad when that happens :(
dress: eShakti
hoodie: H&M
vest: Old Navy
sunglasses and glasses: Warby Parker
bag: Nordstrom
sneakers: Converse
braided shrug: Celapiu
holly bracelet: gift
heels: ShoeDazzle
» LOFT has some more new arrivals! And as usual, I want them all. Someone please stop me. Or buy me this romper, this bold jacket (and matching trousers!), these fluid shorts, and this dotty dress.
» A few Etsy treasuries featuring shopHollyDolly : one, two, three, four.
» Isn’t Madalynne’s handmade Vera Aveline dress gorgeous?! She provided a step by step tutorial so you can make your own! I’ll definitely be attempting it sometime this summer.
» P.S - I mentioned it in Wednesday’s outfit post, but the Ross pin is by Invisible Crown.
» Are you on Instagram? Follow along! My username is : hollyjollydolly
