Duct Tape Planters

The time had come to re-pot my plants in to "larger digs" from the cute little pots that I had made when I bought them. All they had at our local store was boring plastic planters. So with a little spray paint and Duct tape this super easy DIY was done.

First I painted all of the pots white with Krylon spray paint, let them dry, and then re-potted my plants. For the decoration I used gold Duct tape, a hole punch, wax paper, black Duct tape sheet (super cool product!), and scissors.

For the polka dots, place a small amount of the gold Duct tape on the wax paper and then use the hole punch to make dots. Peal off the wax paper and stick the dots on in any pattern you wish.

For the triangles, I cut the Duct tape sheet into stripes and then using the grid on the back I cut my triangles. The grid is super helpful in keeping everything the same size. 

Place the tape on the pots in any pattern you wish. I did mine in straight lines, but random would look nice as well. For the smallish planter I just used a piece of the gold Duct tape on the bottom for a dipped look. Super easy project and doesn't take as long as paint or markers. I had not worked with Duct tape before and had no idea it came in so many colors and patterns. There might be a few more uses for the gold Duct tape in future projects!

Riding the Train

Last weekend our family went to the Boone Valley Rail Road and spent a Day out with Thomas. Our youngest Riley LOVES Thomas the Train, and just trains in general. We had taken Max to this event when he was three and had a great time. It was a beautiful morning and we were the first ones to ride the train that day so we got great seats. We also saw many other types of trains including a huge steam train and lots of diesels. We even saw the train that pulled our wedding party for our wedding reception.

There were things to do while waiting to ride the train, like a hay maze and train tables to play with. There was also a bouncy house, video viewing rail car, and you could meet Sir Topumhat. Riley was in heaven. It was nice to get out and do something like this as a family. Jered has been super busy with school/work and I have been pulling tons of overtime at my job as it is the end of our year. I hope we can get back to doing more family time as the holidays approach. 

Shibori

Shibori is the Japanese art of tie dying. I have been wanting to do this craft for a super long time and this summer seemed like the right time to do it. I gathered quite a bit of materials for this project. I bought cotton pillow cases and sheet sets, string and thread, RIT denim dye (I couldn't find any true indigo in our stores here....), a large PVC tube, and rubber bands. I also used beads which I'll explain later in this post.

The most complicated method I did was the thread wrapping called Kanoko shibori. First I drew the pattern lightly in pencil on the pillow case. I did a very simple diamond pattern so that it would be easy to follow.

Then following the lines I placed a bead and wrapped thread around the base a few times. I did not tie the thread as you need to unbind the beads after dying. 

The finished pillow case looks like the picture below. This took about 3 hours to complete, but it was worth it.

I also did Itajime shibori which is tightly bound cloth, Arashi shibori which is wrapped around a tube and tied, and Kumo shibori which is where you fold and press the cloth into triangles.

To dye the fabric I uses 3 gallons of hot water (as hot as I could stand with my hands) plus 2 cups of salt and of course one bottle of Rite Dye. Some of the fabric I placed in the dye bath and some I just dipped and held to have the dye only stain part of the fabric fold.

I love the way it turned out. The Kanoko shibori technique is my favorite and took the most work. I would like to try true indigo dye some day, but these are still very cool and the boys love their new sheets.