how to tie-dye like it's 1989

When Kerri was up visiting last month we took to crafting a bit, trying our hand at a craft as old as time, tie-dying. She brought the shirts, I brought the kit. And wala! 

I got the kit from A.C. Moore but you can find the same one here too. The kit was pretty standard as far as kits go and had most everything you needed.

Things you need:

White t-shirts

Tie-dye kit

Bucket

Rubber gloves

Plastic bags

Table cloth

First you soak the clean dry t-shirts in the lye and hot water solution in a bucket for twenty minutes. After that you squeeze out as much water as possible before doing your design. We all decided to do the spiral, just pinching a piece of fabric wherever we wanted the center of the design to be and spinning it in a circle until the shirt was all twisted up. Then we added rubber bands around the edge. Once the dye was mixed  up we just sort of went to town, putting a different color in each triangular "wedge." I took a bit of convincing on this one because I couldn't wrap my head around it but Kerri was right, one color per wedge equals awesomeness. The more dye that you add the less white will be on the final shirt. You can stick the nozzle down into the folds of the shirt too to get more dye in all the crevices.

We put the t-shirts inside plastic bags and let them sit for 24 hours before rinsing with cold water until the water ran clear and then we threw them in the wash and wala again! The best of tie-dye shirts.

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our fourth of july, a few weeks late

Maybe I can just really drag out our summer here if I continue to post about things that happened weeks ago right? There's just been a lot going on. So here I am, on the 20th, posting about the 4th.

We hosted our very first summer patriotic barbecue! Growing up my parents had a pool and our Fourth's were just the very best! Our family would all come in from New York, all our friends would come over and it would be a day spent outside in the pool followed by a night-time semi legal fireworks display. It was a day we looked forward to all summer. So! To have a pool of our very own! How very excite! The day looks sliiiiightly different now than the Fourth's of my youth because well, we have our very own youths to contend with. 

We had ourselves some appetizers and some swimming. Bomb pops and a delicious patriotic drink courtesy of my sister (virgin and alcoholic alike). Then we dried off and had ourselves quite the spread of food of the barbecue variety and then pie! and cake! All that eating before heading back outside for our own version of fireworks, some kind of sparklers and those things that pop when you throw them on the ground? Those. We took it very seriously of course.

The rest of my family left to head on home and put their own babes to bed, but Matt and I? We were determined that our children would see actual fireworks on the Fourth. We had a fire and s'mores while waiting for a more appropriate time to walk across the street and up the hill to see what we could see. The boys were fading fast but we definitely saw some good blasts from within the development and without. I think all the kids were asleep before their heads hit the pillow... a solid end to our Fourth!

Past Fourth of July's here, here, here and here!

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