The Pintester Movement

It's time for something a little bit different and a lot of fun. I joined up with the Pintester (go click that link to see her VERY funny and fun blog) to try out one of my many Pinterest pins. 

I chose Sharpie marker pen tie dying! I pinned this pin several months ago thinking I would do it with my kids.  But inspiration struck me to do it with my class.  I teach adults with disabilities.  And I'm always looking for something fun but educational to do with them.  I won't get into the science lesson because well, I don't feel like it and I really didn't get into it that heavy anyway when I did it with my class.  Honestly it was something fun and different to do with my class. And we had a blast!

 This is what I learned.  It works great. It's also very, very, very easy.  I have a few adults in wheelchairs who were able to do this pretty much by themselves. Well they could do the Sharpie part themselves but the rubbing alcohol part I did for everybody just to be on the safe side. So if you're doing this with children don't let them handle the rubbing alcohol. Using just the cups and a dot pattern or even pictures works well it makes really fun designs as you can see.

But I warn you it takes a lot more alcohol to spread the designs than it tells you in the pin.  I used WAY more alcohol than I thought I would. The best looking design ended up being the more traditional tie-dyed twist effect. You twist the T-shirt up and then add rubber bands every so often. Then you just color in wherever there's white with a Sharpie. The best result was when there was not any white showing after we twisted it and colored it in.

We also learned through default that T-shirts that are not washed first work better.  All my students brought in their own T-shirts and some were pre-washed and some were brand-new. After taking them all home and washing them in hot water to set the color and then drying them on very hot, we found that the brand-new T-shirts held the ink better then the pre-washed T-shirts. This is also not with the pin tells you on Pinterest.  It tells you to pre-wash the T-shirts. But don't if you want the color to be more vivid and last longer.

So all in all a good pin and I really love this idea of picking a pin on my Pinterest board and trying it out, then blogging it on this blog. So I think I will try to do this more often. I'd like to say once a week. But we all know that's not going to happen. So I'm thinking maybe once a month. We'll see. You know me it could go four months before I get around to another one but I'll try I promise.

And again go check out the Pintester NOW! http://pintester.com/2013/05/the-pintester-movement-craft-all-the-things

Come See Me!!

If you happen to live in the Wilmington, NC area or are going to be visiting please stop by the beautiful Arboretum on Oleander Dr. and see me.  Well see me and a lot of other really talented local artisans.  Plus you can check out the Arboretum (which is free) or buy tickets for the water garden tour going on this weekend if your into that sort of thing.  But really just come see me and my art! Please!

I suck at blogging

Have to say that I really do suck at blogging.  I really want to blog.  But I just don't seem to have a lot of time.  Because I work with my hands I find it very difficult to sit down and type out a blog.  But I really enjoy getting my thoughts out and onto this space.  So I'm going to try and use this lovely new dictation thing-a-mabob that my MacBook now has.  So I used dictation to do this whole blog so far and  so far so good.  I just might have a solution.  Except that I actually have to go in and add pictures and change all the screwed up spelling/wrong words.  But it's a lot less spelling mistakes than if I'd actually typed this damn thing myself so that's better I guess.

I guess I'll try to fill you in as to where I disappeared you for the last six months. I tried to do the 30 Days of Gratitude pictures in November but never finished.  I started to get a flurry of Christmas orders on my Etsy site so I never really finished it.  I pretty much folded my ass off all of December to fill orders.  Then well I really don't have much of an excuse for the beginning of the year but I was still getting orders.  Then I was accepted to Handmade Wilmington and started getting into more and more local craft shows.  I even had a booth set up during Azalea Festival for two days in April and that was HUGE for me.  So I've been working really hard trying to keep my stock up while still  teaching three days a week and have a family and have friends.  My plate is pretty full right now.  But since this dictation thing seems to be going pretty well I might not have excuses anymore since I can now type and fold origami at the same time.  So we'll see if I manage to post more blogs but don't hold your breath.