T-Shirt Dye DIY

I finally did the winter-to-summer clothes switch in my closet the other day and I came across a t-shirt that I had purchased but never wore.

I absolutely love South Parade t-shirts because they are super flattering on and also really insanely soft. True&Co carried their tee’s for a bit and I was able to use some referral credits to stock up. Unfortunately, I kind of hate white t-shirts. I much prefer colors or black, so this one just sat in my drawer until I packed it away last fall.

Lately nothing in my house is safe from purging and anything I don’t love gets either sold or donated, so I figured I might as well try dying this t-shirt to see if I like it better in a different color. I had some teal Rit dye sitting in my office, so I decided to put it to work.

By the way, my ugly green bathtub was the perfect fit for this DIY! I probably could have just filled it up with water and dye, but I grabbed a handy dollar store bin. I filled it with hot water and then dumped in the entire container of dye.

Then, I poked it with a stick.

I’ve learned NOT to put my hands in the dye, so I was careful to stir it with a random stick that was sitting in Jack’s bathroom (#boymomlife). I left it in there for an hour or so and then rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed until the water finally ran mostly clear. When it was mostly clean, I added it to the load of laundry that I had going in and gave it a nice wash and dry.

And I LOVE IT:

The color turned out so pretty and as soon as I pulled it out of the dryer I wore it that day AND wore it to bed that night. So yeah, I’m a regular Martha Stewart now.

Do you dye your clothes?

Redoing a DIY

A few years ago when we first bought our house, I was going a little crazy with the DIY’s. I mean, that’s kind of the fun part when you buy a house… to rip everything apart and make it your own. Right?

Well, one of the first projects I did was to upgrade our kitchen. When we moved in, the island was in a super weird spot, the backsplash was bright white and the gold-colored hardware hurt my eyes.

In fact, back then I described it as looking like King Midas came over and molested them.

You can see the full post here — Kitchen Changes, Part 1 — where I decided to paint them with spray paint. It actually turned out really well, but after four years of using our cabinets every day they were looking a bit rough.

Redo knobs - 1

I decided to take an hour over the weekend and redo the whole project. I unscrewed any knob or pull that had a chip in the paint and shoved it through an old cardboard box.

Redo knobs - 2

I did a quick wipe-down with Windex, and then I spray painted the hell out of them.

Redo knobs - 3

I let them dry for about an hour and stuck them back on the cabinets.

I’m not even kidding when I say the entire job took me less than 60 minutes. However, the amount of times I moved the task on my calendar went on for literally MONTHS because I never felt like doing it. Now, hopefully we will be good for another 4 years…

Am I the only one who procrastinates a month for a project that literally takes less than an hour? Have you needed to redo a DIY?

I Saw it On Pinterest: ‘Cat Eye’ Eyeliner

So far in my Pinterest adventures, I’ve tackled a braided bun, made some fire starters, tried to unclog a sink drain, made a t-shirt bag, baked some crappy s’mores pockets and made an awesome blanket scarf.

Well I received a liquid liner in my January Birchbox (review of box coming soon) and had the great thought that I’d use some Pinterest tutorials to try the ‘cat eye’ look. I mean, how hard could it be?

I found two posts that sounded perfect to help me figure it out: 22 Genius Eyeliner Hacks Every Woman Needs to Know and 18 Useful Tips for People Who Suck at Eyeliner. Considering that I use eyeliner on a daily basis, I figured that with these 40 new tips I’d be a PRO!

The girl on the pin is exactly the look that I am going for:

cat eye pin

I mean look at her… it’s perfect! And don’t even get me started on the eyebrow jealousy I have going on right now…

So with this exact ‘swoop’ in mind, I readied myself. I read EVERY SINGLE tip in each article. I steadied my hand on my face. I made small dots with the liquid liner and slowly smudged them together. I tried making the liner extend out on a curve… only to realize it was randomly curving down when I stopped pulling my skin tight. I wiped it off with makeup remover and tried it again.

And again.
And again.
Okay, so I got one side done and it’s not TOO awful.

cat eye 2

And then, I did the other side.

cat eye 3

What the hell just happened here?!
I’m not even kidding when I say that this is literally the best that I could do after trying over and over again.

Even when it seemed like I was doing a good job, I’d back up from the mirror to look and I pretty much looked CRAZY.

I mean, LOOK AT THIS:

cat eye 4

Maybe I just need more practice? Like months and months of more practice…

Have you perfected the art of the ‘cat eye’?