New Favorite Stain-Fighter!

As the mom of three active children, I'm always looking for ways to make their clothing a little bit less of a 'disposable' item- as soon as one of the boys wears a shirt, it often has stains on it that won't come out.  I've been tie-dyeing clothing with issues, but yesterday I tried a new technique, low-water immersion dyeing.  It's even less effort than tie-dyeing, and I think I may like the results even better.

Both boys seem to like the turtle-necks that they're now allowed to wear to school again, and the older one is planning to make his computer virus costume for the FLL skit from a t-shirt dyed this way.

I like the way these turned out well enough that I'm thinking about dyeing some t-shirt blanks for the Hyena Cart Black Monday stocking in a similar manner, maybe even doing some Christmas presents?  Who knows!  I love finding new ways of using things I already have!

Coming up for air

Once upon a time, I was an individual with a direction in life.  I was going somewhere, going to do something of value in my life.  Then that 'thing of value' became raising my children.  (yes, this is a very important thing to be doing, but...)  Ten years have passed with too little sleep to think very clearly, and with the most important things of every day being those very basic needs. 

Has everyone been fed?  Do I have enough food in the house to make dinner?  Are there clean clothes?  Are the clothes put away where they can be found and worn?  Is the house clean enough that it won't make anyone sick from the dust that accumulates?

Now my youngest is three (the little girl is mine.  she's next to her cousin), and I'm beginning to come up from underwater.  I'm still overwhelmed by her, housework, laundry, the essentials, but I'm able to look for more and appreciate more.  I can create, too, and I do so daily.

textures

 

and colors

 

So I guess this whole blog post is in celebration- take a deep breath of fresh air, and carry on.

Twitterbird's Nest

"Twitterbird" is the unusual name of a studio on ArtFire. Donna Michel, the artisan behind the studio, creates jewelry from stones, silver, glass lampwork beads, and as seen in the picture of my favorite bracelet, sea glass. This studio is currently being featured by the Guild, and you can find more examples of Donna's work in my RSS feed, to the left.