A Green Future

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

A Green Future

Saint Patrick's Day is coming and a few of us good friends, are going to participate in the St. Paddy's Day Dash Down Greenville 5k next weekend. This called for some last minute costume preparations, on a budget!

I wore my old home-made tie-dye shirt and Ale wore green accents..........to get us in the spirit!!

Jess, Ale, and myself reunited with our adolescent selves and purged our inner creative geniouses into making green tie-dye shirts! Since we wanted all the shirts to be uniform in color, we gave each a unique personal touch by experimenting with different tying techniques.

Below, is what Jess came up with.

Ale made these running off only 2 hours of sleep! Great job, girlfriend!

And mine are below. I must say, I'm very proud of they way my accordion technique turned out. It almost looks like tie-dye plaid!

We also stewed some socks and headbands. It was crazy stirring boiling hot green water with socks in it. A part of me felt like I should put it in the frig and have green jello later....and a part of me felt like a kid pretending to make a witches potion.
Unfortunately the socks material didn't take well to the dye, consequently resulting in a baby blue hue, but some-how the headbands turned out perfect. We decided only thing that could make them more perfect, was a little extra pizzaz.

I jumped on the project like a white rice on a sushi roll.......which roll's us into the weekend.

What better way to spend a rainy Saturday than crafting and watching movies with my hunny???

Let's first discuss our movie choices: The High Cost of Living and I Love You Phillip Morris. Most of the time, I'm frustrated with our limited instant download choices on Netflix, but sometimes it works out, because it forces us to watch movies we normally would ignore, such as these. The stories were refreshingly different. If you get bored of the regular ol' main stream plots, then I recommend giving these a shot.

Now, on to the engaging stuff................

I constructed Four-Leaf-Clover Pins to garnish the girl's headbands.......for good luck and kpLOVE charm, of course.

Supplies:

White computer paper

Pencil

Green Felt

Black Sharpie

Sharp Scissors

Needle and Green Thread

Button

Fabric Glue

Jewelry Pin

I started out by finding a 4 leaf clover that I liked on a Google Images Search, opened the image to the desired size, and traced the pattern onto my paper. (The backlighting on the laptop works perfect for this.)

Do this for 3 different size clovers, then cut them out to use as a pattern.

Next, pin the clover pattern onto the backside of the felt and trace an outline for cutting. (I used a pin so the pattern wouldn't slip out of place while tracing, but it is not a necessity.)

Then cut them out!

Repeat this step for each color/size of felt for the number of clovers you plan to make.

Arrange the different size/colored pieces of clover cut-outs on top of each other, add your button in the middle, and stitch in place with needle and thread. (Don't worry about the ugly sewing in the back, we're about to cover that up.)

Measure the width of the jewelry pin and cut a piece of felt wide enough to cover the width of the pin and long enough to secure the pin on each side.

Glue in place with Fabric Glue or Glass and Bead Glue.

Once your glue is dry, resulting in a nice and secure pin, you are ready to tackle any St. Patrick's day wardrobe challenge with your lucky Four-Leaf-Clover Pin!!!

I made these Tulle Bows with sparkly sequins and shimmery pom-pom's for a must-have sock decor. Very easy to make.

Then I went with a dramatically simpler, more masculine design for our men. What do you think?? The shimmery pom-pom's and polka-dot ribbon add a powerful macho touch, yes?

To re-create this, all you have to do is cut your ribbon, curve it in half, stitch the pom-pom on (to hold it all in place), and glue the pin on the back with a piece of felt just as I did with the Clover-Pin.