{DIY} Bleach Tie Dye Sweater

After I made my bleached shorts (find them here), I guess you could say I went a little bleach mad, and wanted badly to bleach something again.  Whilst living life, I found myself interesting in trying to tie dye with bleach, and decided to give it a shot.  Needless to say, I absolutely LOVED the results.

Materials:

Sweater

Rubber bands

Bleach

Small bowl

Sponge

Gloves

Scissors

Towel

Garbage bag

Bucket of water

First, on a clean surface, lay out the sweater completely flat.

Once you have the sweater flat, carefully fold the sweater accordion style, side to side.  (Be sure to fold the arms in as well, and leave the hood unfolded.)

Wrap the rubber bands around the sweater, being careful to keep the folded shape.

Once you have the rubber bands on, you can pull out any of the folds so that you can see each layer.

Once you have your rubber banded sweater (rubber banded?  Did I just make a verb?), you can set up a work station outside to bleach.  Be sure to keep a bucket full of water near by, this is so you can quickly put the sweater in water to stop the bleaching process.

Pour about a cup of bleach into the small bowl.  While wearing gloves - super important - use a sponge dipped in bleach to create lines in between the rubber bands.  I found it helps to really soak the section your bleaching so some of the bleach goes in between the layers, this makes for an interesting design.  Do both sides of the sweater.

When you reach the coloring desired, you can cut the rubber bands off the sweater and submerge it into the water for a couple of minutes.  Squeeze off excess water and wash it by itself.

Finished masterpiece!

A nice little backside shot.

This is definitely my favorite sweater.  This is gonna be my go-to beach sweater, I can see it now...A nice little beach bonfire, lots of people chilling eating hot dogs, and staring at me and my beautiful sweater, thinking about how jealous they are of my awesome sweater....tehee.  I really love it, I only hope more people try it!  You don't have to just bleach jeans, get creative with it.

And yes, those are the shorts I bleached and distressed.  :)

If you've tried tie dyeing a sweater, I'd love to hear how it turned out!

{DIY} Stamp

These are really fun.  I remember making one for the first time in an art class in High School, I thought it was the coolest thing.  Nobody else in the world is going to have the same exact stamp, I think that's pretty awesome.

Materials:

Eraser

Pencil

Xacto Knife

Speedball Tool

Piece of wood (Preferably 3/4")

Saw

Sandpaper

Ink Pad

Craft Glue

Note - There is a rubber pad specifically made for "stamp-making", but they are generally sold in large pieces. I like the eraser because it's the perfect size for one cute stamp.  Plus, erasers tend to lay all over our house in every drawer and the kids backpacks, so they are really easy to come by, not very expensive.

Another note - They also sell wooden blocks in craft stores that would be perfect for these, I just thought it would be fun to bring out the saw and feel like an accomplished woman, you know sawing a piece of wood and all.  Who needs a man?  Pshhh ;)

If you use this "Pink Pearl" eraser, with the angled edges, you need to straighten it.  To do this, you just cut off the ends.

 Judging from the size of your eraser you can come up with stamp ideas.  I think starting small is the way to go.  A picture with thicker lines and not a lot of details will be so much easier to make.

 Once you have your design, you can draw it on your eraser.

Now this awesome piece of machinery is incredible.  This is what helps you dig into the eraser and make all the designs.

 Whatever is penciled over, you don't want to cut out.  (Don't worry about making it perfect, the little mistakes and imperfections make it even more perfect.)

When you've finished cutting the design out, you can continue to cut off the edges.

 I like to check my design for mistakes or to see if I forgot to cut off a piece.  You can adjust your lines better when you can see the contrasting pink on black.

 Once you've your finished stamp design, you can lay it on the piece of wood to see what size piece you need.

 When you cut it, it's going to be super crazy and bumpy at the edges, a little sanding helps smooth it out.

I like to wipe it down with a wet cloth or paper towel to get the dust off.

After you sand the piece you can stamp your design on one side, then attach the stamp using glue to the other side.  (Be careful to put the stamp on in the correct direction.)

I like to put something heavy on top to make sure the stamp sticks really well.

Enjoy you new stamp.

I realize you all probably wonder what I do all day, since I don't write posts as often as I used to.  I've just been so inspired, so I spend a lot of my time painting, when I'm not running after my little one.  Once I found a way to incorporate these stamps into my artwork, I knew I had to share this little DIY, to hopefully inspire any other artists or crafters.  This is a great one!

Plus, have you ever seen a stamp at the craft store that you totally fell in love with, but it was waaaay too expensive to even consider buying?  Yeah, with this DIY you can make whatever you want, and nobody else is going to have the stamp.

My Prayer Rocks

Not sure if it's a real thing, but they were given to me as a gift from someone who rarely gives gifts so I believe they are.  Funnily enough, I feel more at ease when I hold them.  Though I'm not sure if it's because I'm holding them or because I'm praying to God.  A little of both?

With hard times, come the moments you find your faith in God becoming stronger.

I've noticed a lot of changes happening, within myself, my son, my life.  Good changes, great changes. Growth.  As an artist, person, mother.  Time away from Blogland to reflect and think and live life is just what I needed.

[If you like my book safe, you can see the tutorial I used to make it here.]

A Mini Blog Vacation - Or Just Being Lazy

Chair - here :: Be Brave Owl Artwork - here :: High-Flying Elephants - here :: Building Artwork - here :: Diamonds - here :: Pleasant Balance Bicycle Artwork - here :: Butterflies - here

I've been a little absent from Blogland for the past couple weeks, mostly because of some allergies that were really bugging me.  I just decided to stop fighting them and let them take over, so there was a lot of lying down and nap taking being done over here.  However, what does one do when one feels like death and also has to stay awake because one's son isn't sleeping with them?  One watches The Incredibles and Finding Nemo (Note: Finding Dory coming in 2015?!? Whaaaaa?  Jeremy and I are beyond excited.  We are both hoping the same funny and cute dialogue and heart felt moments will be in the new one as well.) a ton, and surfs the internet.  Whilst surfing the internet, I came across this awesome website that sells tons of artwork in various forms, pillowcases, prints, iPhone cases, what have you.  Society6.  It's kind of awesome.  It has definitely helped with my endeavor to create a gallery wall with lots of different, positive, and amazing artwork by lots of artists.  This is also where most of the above artwork was found.  Along with that absolutely amazing patterned chair that I found via Pinterest and some artwork from Etsy, the above little collage turned out to be a collection of some great inspiration.

You know when you've found something great when it makes you feel all magical inside.  Especially when you are feeling incredibly low.  Darn you allergies, it took a while, but I think I've found my way out of that hole.  You know that feeling you get when you've been sick for a while and have basically been vacationing and doing nothing so you can feel better...but then when you start feeling better you stay vacationing and doing nothing because it felt good to just be lazy and relax?  Yeah, that's not a very productive feeling.  I feel the need to apologize to God because I spent the gifts or days he gave me doing absolutely nothing productive.  Having a lack of any energy is definitely not something you want to take you over.  On top of having no energy, when I started getting back into the groove of things, Jeremy received a little turtle from his dad.  So I spent basically all of my energy and time into learning about turtles and making the little guy a home that I hope he is comfortable in and loves.  Squirt is his name, and boy is he adorable!  I actually touched him yesterday too, this is a great accomplishment for me as I am not a big reptile person.

Holy Jeeze, there is so much I want to talk about right now.  Over this past week, a lot of different emotions have been building up, and instead of letting them explode, I'm trying to slowly release them so I can express myself the way I want to.  Hopefully I can organize these thoughts soon, as there is so much I want to talk about.

Have you ever received a pet as a gift, and had absolutely no idea how to take care of it?

Have you ever been stuck in a lazy rut, how did you manage to get out of it?