Merry Christmas, lovelies! Now that it's finally cooled off to 90 degrees it can finally start feeling like the holidays. What, you didn't know it came early this year? It certainly did!
Potter + Butler held their
Christmas in July: Handmade Gift Exchange project this month and it could not have been more fun. The idea was this: make something for your assigned gift exchange partner and then make the same gift and give it to someone as a random act of kindness. Can't go wrong with that, right? Little did I know, I'd be partnered up with the lovely Connie Cheng from the crafty/inspirational blog,
Daydream in Color; the stakes were high but I felt so lucky to have Connie over for the holidays!
I decided to try my hand at a little dip-dye action so I made Connie some napkins.
If you are lucky duck enough to have laundry in your abode and able to find liquid dye at your local craft store (mine was all out), this process is much quicker. Much quicker.
First, I washed the cotton napkins and hung them up to dry. Before dyeing, I ironed each one and folded it the exact way I wanted the napkin to look when finished.
Psst - the colors were much lighter in person. I promise I didn't give split pea soup colored napkins to Connie; they were actually a light linen color. Promise.
I was hoping for some blue and hot pink liquid dye, but my craft store only had these color and dye options left in stock. Apparently, dip-dyeing is in! I followed the package instructions but basically I filled a big bowl with really hot water, added some salt, dish soap and then the dye.
I wanted to achieve a sort of ombre effect so I followed
this dip-dyeing tutorial: I quickly dipped the napkin in the dye bath once, about half way up, then dipped it again, this time a little lower on the napkin, and held it in the dye for a minute or so longer. I repeated this step once more, again dipping the napkin in less and less each time.
I rinsed the napkin under cold water to set the color.
Sorry for the blurry photo. It's really hard to hold your craft still with one hand and take a picture of it with the other. Also, wear gloves. Don't follow my lazy crafter example.
Then I dried the napkins once again and ironed them into place. The best part about this DIY is the more imperfect the dye job, the prettier they look!
Then I sent them off to Santa at his summer workshop (so weird he vacations in Jersey) where his elves wrapped the gift and added some homemade apple butter.
Merry Christmas in July, Connie!
Psst - As my random gift of kindness, I gave the blue dip-dyed napkins to a co-worker of mine. It was such a joy seeing her face light up; I wish every month could be Christmas in July!
But wait, you have to see what the talented Connie made me!
Being a sweet blog reader of mine, she knew I happened to fancy the color pink. She made an adorable clock out of corkboard (how did she know I needed one?!), an even cuter pink gift topper ribbon, and threw in some delicious strawberry candies! They may or may not be all gone by now. Just saying. I loved every little bit of my gift and clearly I need to have Connie over here for a little DIY clock tutorial!
Thank you so much, Connie!
I had so much fun participating in this project and love hearing the stories of all the other gift exchanges that happened throughout July. Those
Potter + Butler ladies certainly know how to spread merriment, don't they? Head over
here to read more about the project and check out their story of their random gift of kindness over
here (it's a story we can all relate to).
Have you ever given something homemade to someone, simply just because?
Has anyone tried dip-dyeing yet? Any tips you could give me for my second attempt?
