Tea Dyeing Tips

 I know I said I'd do a post about tea dyeing my sheets, so here it is (months later). I wanted to do this because I couldn't find much information online when I started researching, so hopefully this will help someone else dye their sheets/drapes/pillow/dress/etc. 

The method is pretty straight-forward, that wasn't the hard part. 

Step one: brew black tea (such as good ole Lipton's)

Step two: submerge your fabric in the tea

Step three: wait as long as you want

Step four: remove, rinse, enjoy (your new tea dyed fabric, not the tea itself)

I wanted to do my sheets because they were whitewhitewhite and my quilt is an off white. It looked bizarre, as demonstrated by the poor quality picture below.

I knew my sheets wouldn't fit in my big pot I used to dye my lace curtains, so the tub was the only option. This was one of my unanswered questions. 

Q: Will the tea stain my vinyl tub? 

The short answer is yes. 

However, when it was all over, (it ended up taking several hours) I immediately let the water out and scrubbed that sucker. And you know what ended up saving the day (again)? The trusty Magic Eraser. They don't play around. So my advice is this:

A: To avoid stains, act quickly and scrub with a trusted cleaning solution

Q: How long should I soak my fabric?

A: It really does depend on the fabric. Natural fibers work best for dyeing. When I stained my curtains (which are polyester) I only needed them to be a little duller than they already were, so I did about 10-12 minutes and let them dry outside. 

The sheets (cotton) took much longer because they were very white to begin with, and there was much more fabric involved. I used a pillowcase as a test, and I left it in for 45 minutes. See the difference below:

 When I did the rest (sheet, fitted sheet, and other pillow case), I left it in there for about an hour... two times. (More on that later) I recommend stirring things around (with a wood spoon... I don't recommend shoving your hand into lava hot water) every 10-15 minutes to make sure everything is submerged (air pockets push areas up).

After about an hour (maybe even a little longer), I used my husband's man-strength to lug my sopping wet sheets to the dryer for the spin cycle. 

Q: Should I wash my sheets immediately or will that undo the stain?

A: Dry them first to set the stain, then wash normally.

I couldn't find much information, so I called my mother-in-law (AKA the Stain Terminator) to ask about tea stains. She said even she has been hard pressed to get a tea stain out once it has dried and really set in.  I didn't want to risk it, so I used the spin cycle then dried them to set the stain first. I then put them on my bed and huffed and puffed because they weren't dark enough. When they were wet they looked much darker (makes sense)... So I decided to do it all over again.

Yep... I brewed a whole new batch of tea and started over. 

Q: How many tea bags should I use?

A: Again, totally up to how dark you want it, but I used at least 6 for a set of sheets in a tub (each time). For a smaller job, such as the curtains, I only used 2 in a big pot. 

I used my huge pot to boil water with all the tea bags in it (dipping them in and out helps move things along), then I poured the tea into the tub. I added water from the faucet (fortunately our water really does get lava hot) until I thought there was enough to cover the sheets. Then I threw the sheets in, tried to get rid of some of the air pockets, and let them stay in for another hour. 

Spin cycle, dry, put them on the bed with fingers crossed, and hurrah! I was happy. Then I took them back off and washed them properly, detergent and all, with fingers crossed that it wouldn't undo the last 3+ hours of work. 

Not a great picture, but they are just about the same shade of off-white now.

Q: Will my sheets smell like tea, thus will I smell like tea every morning?

A: Nope! Especially not after you wash them.

I haven't had any problems since tea dyeing my sheets. It's possible they have lightened a bit, but nothing noticeable. There has been no smell, no skin irritation, I have washed them several times since. So if you have something that it a bright white and you wish to give it a softer, more worn or antique shade, I highly recommend tea dyeing. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them!

In other news:

I took a glass-blowing class! It was a Groupon find. Nashville has some really great deals on Groupon (more than just pedicures and restaurants) and I have always though glass art was so interesting and under-appreciated. I have also taken a class on stained glass. I made this little tumbler with my own two hands and lungs.  

Try something new. Take a class on wine tasting or cake decorating. Check out your city's Groupons. 

Stay Tuned, 

Haley

Home Made Christmas 2011

Have a holly jolly home made Christmas! 

This year I actually followed through and made our Christmas cards. I wanted to last year, but work, graduating from college, and getting married got in the way. Not this year. I had time to kill since Josh was gone for a month. Lets start this thing off with the finished product!

I bought blank cards from Hobby Lobby. They were 50 for $10. Can't beat that! I then raided Lowes for paint swatches of the colors I needed for the Christmas Trees. I got the idea from... you guessed it. Pinterest. I needed to make about 20 more and went back to Hobs Lobs, {it's about 30 minutes from our house. sad face.} but they were completely out of this butcher paper brown so I decided to go with white)

This was my inspiration:

source

But since patterned scrapbook paper is pricey (like redonkulous) and paint swatches are f-r-double-e, I got in stealth mode and hit up my Lowes. It was sad, really. I don't know what I expected to happen, but I felt like a I was shoplifting and became all shady and shifty. Even though they are free. It's heard to shoplift free samples. Anyway, I left Lowes with a purse full of swatches to create these jolly little guys. 

Pretty simple, just cut the strips and glued them down with tacky glue (all I have), then covered each batch with wax paper and stacked a book on top so it wouldn't curl. Cutting out the stars took the most time. After it dried, I punched a hole in the star with a large embroidery needle (yarn needle to be exact)

I went to visit my sister the first weekend Josh was gone, and she helped me with the front of the cards. We came up with the idea to stamp something on the background of the front so that when people remove the ornament, there is still something to look at. In the end, the ever-popular chevron pattern won.

We made the stamp from self-adhesive foam and one of those thick acrylic clear-stamp-block. Does that make sense?

Google searched it for you to have a visual. This, but bigger. Source.

My sister Amelia just so happens to be craftier and artsier than me, so she had all sorts of goodies for me to play with. Applying paint to the makeshift stamp with a brush didn't work out so well, and neither did the block printing ink that she had (because it was applied to foam instead of linoleum as is typically used for block printing.) 

Rolling a paint-glue mixture with a brayer worked juuust right (Did you read that like Goldilocks? This paint was too thick, and this paint was too thin, but this mixture was juuust right)

The roller is called a brayer. You want a thin layer of paint/glue (it needs some stick to it) and roll it thin enough that you hear a ripping noise. I don't know how else to explain it. 

Then I quickly stamped it to the front so the paint wouldn't dry on the foam

And turned it over and rubbed it with a wooden spoon

And peeled it off.

I got this little "Merry Christmas" stamp from the lobby of hobbies, and used a silver ink to get the point across.

How jolly.

After a few hours, I had 50 card fronts, ready for further beautification. 

All I did next was use rubber cement to attach the tree ornament to the front, print out the little poem and cut them out with zig zag scissors, and cut slits with an x-acto knife for the corners of the picture to slide into. (Or should I say, "into which the corners of the pictures to slide"? ...Grammar police.)

Assemble, autograph and address.

Our friends Kyle and Courtney were kind enough to snap the pictures for us. The winning shot was taken at Nashville's Centennial Park inside the big and beautifully lit tree. Just for fun, here are some other shots from the night. 

Also, There are finally presents under the tree! I used more left over paint swatches to jazz up the plain brown contractor's paper. (Sensing a theme here?) You can get a ginormo roll that could easily last 50 years for $10. It gives you an opportunity to customize and add some pizzaz for each person. And it beats the pants off of that uber-expensive fancy wrapping paper (not that it isn't beautiful and festive, just pricey)

I used a silver sharpie to draw different snowflakes on the blue paint swatches then cut out the first letter of the name of the recipient. On the others I cut big triangles from tri-color samples and made Christmas tree tags. I got a little carried away. (The one on the left reads: to: p-daddy {my dad pete}, heart: j-thug {josh} & h-bomb {haley} 'Cause we gangsta like dat). I still want to make bows for them.

Christmas cheer has also found its way to the mantle. I replaced the fall leaves with leftover ornaments, a snowman, and a little nativity we got as a wedding present. 

I wanted to make stockings out of some drop cloth and felt, and perhaps I still will, but I didn't want to have to hand stitch everything. 

I still haven't finished making my tree skirt yet, but this is the idea:

I used an old tree skirt to trace the size on the drop cloth (Basically a big circle with a little circle cut out of the middle), used tacky glue to create a seam, then created a ton these rose buds using your basic blog-pinterest-google tutorial, and attached them with, yep, tacky glue. I've got buds on about 3/4ths of the edge. That last fourth will be the end of me. 

We head home tomorrow to spend time with our families. It's not Christmas time until you spend massive amounts of time with loved ones. 

So from our little family of two, Merry Christmas!

Haley (and Josh)

Table Refinish in Time to Give Thanks

Thanksgiving has come and gone. This year family sat at MY table to dine, so I had a lot of work to do before turkey-day. {Which was an excellent way to keep me busy and not focus on the absence of my sweet husband. He is on tour! Add that to the "thankful for" list!} My parents recently gave us a small table that had once been their first table as a couple. It was still in great condition, but needed a bit of a makeover. 

Cue the handy-dandy in-laws! When Josh's parents came to visit the weekend before he left for tour, they helped me strip the old paint off and apply milk paint.

Paint stripper is serious business. Apparently it can melt your skin off... or something like that. You need specific tools, such as a metal paint dish, nylon brush, rubber gloves, face mask, goggles, and scrapers. 

Lessons learned concerning paint stripping:

Apply carefully!

Put on a thick gloppy layer of the chemical.

Let the product do the work for you (See how the paint bubbles?)

Apply a second layer of goop if need be.

Scrape with the direction of the wood grain or it might damage the wood.

This is how much we got off after the first try.

We really liked the look of the table when it was stripped. It has been painted so many different colors, and for such a long time, it stained the wood green, red, yellow... pretty neat.

But I couldn't resist the urge to try my hand at milk paint!

Milk paint applies streaky and vintagey. We mixed slate and white to get this light blueish-grey for the tabletop. 

Then we used white for the legs.

(see all the years of paint underneath?)

Here it is covered in the milk paint.

Although it is lovely in its own right, I saw something grander ahead.

Insert countless hours of cutting out this stencil.

{Seriously... hours upon hours. For days and days.} 

As my sister said, crafters will spend so much time and energy to create something themselves. Just for the satisfaction.

Totally worth it!

This is one satisfied crafter!

You can buy stencil blanks at a craft store (such as Hobby Lobby). I also got the stencil sponges, basically circle sponges on a stick, and they worked great. Then I used a spray poly coat to seal and protect from my unruly family at Thanksgiving. 

;)

I am so grateful that my parents, sister, and brother-in-law got to spend the holiday with me in Nashville. The pictures above are from Opryland. We also visited downtown Franklin, did some shopping, some antiquing, and lots of eating! 

Now that November is coming to a close, you know what's next!

Mine and Jesus' birthdays! (In no particular order)

I'll post a wish list soon.

Stay tuned,

Hales 

DIY Mantle: Warming up the Naked Fireplace

Sorry for the lag, guys. I got a little caught up between a weekend at home and a weekend of pure fun and relaxation (and a week in between).

 Quite a few changes have occurred between our playground adventure and now. 

The biggest change is our new mantle. It has added such a sense of homey-ness to our little old apartment! 

For some reason, the fireplace in our apartment (big selling point for us, btw) is just on a blank wall. It has a nice white frame and painted black insides, but it just exists. Which is a crying shame considering it is such a nice feature, and it is on one of the huge vaulted-ceiling walls. It just felt.... naked

(This is the only picture I have of the wall pre-mantle. I guess it was shy because it was so naked)

And here is how we did it. 

-We bought a length of 1x6 from Lowe's (And they cut it to size for us, of course)

-and 2 decorative L-brackets.

-We already had stain from the coffee table project

Here are my raw materials 

(On our new balcony furniture, but we will get to that in another post)

We intentionally got a board that had lots of knots and "character" to it.

But as straight as we could find. Lots of jokes were made.

This time I used an old towel instead of a paintbrush. It was equally as messy. But I work at a preschool so I am totally over caring about messes. Wood stain on my hands is much less of a concern after snot and poop.

I love the color that it turned out to be! More than the coffee table, really. I didn't use the ebony undertone.

And I stained the L-brackets. (No pictures. Just use your imagination)

Here it is again "Before" with all sorts of project materials in the way of what could be a beautiful fireplace.

I made Josh hold this at a dozen different heights. 

In the end, about 3 inches above the fireplace frame was the location that won our hearts.

The brackets have a receiver built in, so all we did was unsuccessfully look for the studs and drive in a screw. We then decided to include an anchor and felt much better about the life expectancy of whatever ends up living on the mantle. (So it wouldn't fall)

So it looked like this for a few days. 

You know how patient I am?... well the stain wasn't even dry at this point. But I was so anxious to get it on the wall that I just covered the edge that touched the wall in painters tape. Worked like a charm, by the way. 

Remember that big ole frame? Yeah... We had plans for that. More on that later.

Now for a detail pic:

See the swirly L-bracket?! So purty.

 Budget Breakdown:

Lumber: 1x6.........$7.00

2 L-Brackets.......$12.74

Stain.......................Free

Total..................~$20.00

And what became of that frame? Well, I'll show you!

We spray painted it (The pictures above were already sporting a cream colored spray paint. But I wasn't diggin' it.)

We moved on to a light blue (A nice accent for our very tan-brown-cream living room)

It was looking awfully "Baby Boy"ish, so I made sure to distress it lots with our handy dandy orbital sander. Better. 

Then we wrapped the whole thing in chicken wire.

I'm really lacking on pictures of this process, but basically we 

1. rolled out some chicken wire, 
2. used all-purposed snips to snip a line we thought was approximately the correct length, 
3. put the frame face down
4. (carefully) wrapped the wire around the edge (pulled it tight)
5. and staple-gunned it on the back

Except we under-estimated a tad on the length, so on one side it didn't reach the back. We just decided that would be the top and no one would see it anyway. Except you. No big.

And here is the front: (bad lighting for all these... I apologize)

Before

After! Nice and level... YAY!

So now to decorate that behemoth sucker.

I have a feeling it will have many different faces throughout its life above my mantle.

Here is the birth of the first one.

Anyone remember these?! I made these moss letters for our wedding. 

Here is proof:

So I removed the orange ribbon and added lace in its place.

Naked mantle

All situated. 

Left details

Right details (I love my felt birdie)

 Josh picture of details

A very fulfilled couple.

(oh, and this was all after we took a hike through Percy Warner Park...)

So we are allll ready for autumn to roll back around so we can utilize our now-beautiful fireplace. And Christmas so we can finally hang stockings!

A couple other changes that deserve a nod are our new lamp shades from Target

Once we (I) saw these, we (I) was hooked. We (Josh) promptly returned the plain jane ivory shades to Lowe's and we fell in love with these burlap drum shades.

And the ladder found a home!

I'm still open to ideas on how to spruce it up. Please comment below if you can think of something!

There are a couple more projects to fill you in on, but that will have to wait for another day.

Stay tuned!

Haley