Etsy user TaMuidBeo featured my Rose and Lava Bead Jumble Necklace in her Etsy Treasury Hot Lava (top row, 2nd from right in photo). I’m loving all the other lava pieces…it’s such a fun, organic material to work with! Thanks TMuidBeo!!
xoxox
Carly
Unlike the New York Times, who doesn’t seem to understand what DIY actually is, Lucky Magazine gets it. They really get it! I was simply floored by their feature on dyeing pieces in your wardrobe to give them new life, featured in their February 2011 issue.
Utilizing Rit Fabric Dye
, and Tarrago leather dye, you too can make over a number of items in your closet and dye them to suit your needs. (“The $2 Trick that Will Change Your Wardrobe!” reads the title.)
Though yes, dye is cheap, the prep and process time for dyeing something can be a few hours to a few days, so it’s not cheap time-investment-wise. But as the article points out, you can achieve dramatic results if you put in the effort to dye something correctly and carefully.
However, most of the pieces in the article appear to be new, which is why the dyeing works so darn well…when you’re dealing with items that have wear, stains, detergents, or distressing on them, your results may be very different. Dyeing something is never a guaranteed process…it’s fairly hit and miss (which is what many people love about it!). Don’t start off with trying to dye your favorite dress in the whole wide world…start smaller, and don’t forget the steps necessary to prep the piece to take the dye.
Dyeing leather is absolutely fantastic and utterly addicting, though again, some leathers will or won’t react with the dye, depending on finishing, tanning method, wear, surface coats, etc. Also: I couldn’t find the leather dye kit the magazine recommends buying from WardrobeSupplies.com – they only sell Tarrago-brand leather polish, which is not the same as dye. I’d recommend Angelus-brand leather dye, as I’ve worked with that before and it is extremely high-quality. If you’d prefer the Tarrago-brand, you can buy it here on a different site…or even buy the kit on Ebay.
They even put together a little video as a quick how-to for the dyeing process for cotton/silk/synthetic fabrics – where Fashion News Director Jen Ford dyes a Barbara Bui dress:
Their other video for how to dye leather isn’t up yet.
I’m so thrilled to see a mainstream mag really try to break the process of dyeing down and inspire people to try it out!
How about you guys? Are you thinking of dyeing a couple pieces in your wardrobe to liven things up a little?
xoxox
Carly
Or at least the blame shall fall to Chelsea Zalopany, who wrote the Dec. 30 article “Feathered Friends / D.I.Y. Headbands.”
Oh, New York Times. I appreciate your efforts to make DIY more accessible to everyone, I truly do. But you’re approaching it wrong.
To make DIY appeal to a large audience, you need to showcase something that’s easy and that anyone can do (at least to start off with; though you can totally go off on a tangent into cray-cray complicated projects once you’ve whet the appetite).
The opening paragraph is almost a contradiction in terms. How many of you spend the time between Christmas and New Year’s “just sitting around?” Me, I spend it with family, running to New Year’s get-togethers, send out thank-you cards for Christmas presents, exchanging gifts that were the wrong size or broken when I opened the box, cleaning out my email inbox, taking down the decorations, throwing out all the extra Christmas cookies…and that’s just for starters. But even in the spare time I do have…if I’m considering a DIY project, well…
It takes Behr three hours to create each spring 2011 twig headpiece, and she’s broken it down into four easy steps. Now that’s time well spent.
Now there’s one sentence guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of anyone even dabbling in DIY…and enough to send me back to my Christmas cookies.
Why spend 3 hours on a single hand-dyed, hand-shaped, hand-wrapped feather headpiece? (Unless you enjoy the process that much.) I’d rather use those 3 hours to make:
*2 Polka-Dot Shoe-Clips*1 Magazine Clutch*1 Cage Cuff*2 Scroll Earrings*and a Woven Ribbon Bow Tunic
Kind of like the 12 Days of Christmas. You can even set it to music (start with the tune from the “5 Golden rings” part), if you like.;-) [And all these quick-and-easy projects are coming up here on Chic Steals…stay tuned!]
And all that will probably only take an hour and a half, so you can also make a feathered headband using my tutorial here, just for good measure.:-) [Use a “hat pad” instead of hand-gluing all the feathers like I did; there’s some great choices here.)
So leave the involved, 4-step process using unbleached coq feathers, setting with vinegar, drying with a hair-dryer, steaming over a kitchen teakettle, hand-stripping, and hand-wrapping painstakingly in wire…to the experts. That’s what you pay $148 for. (But if you ever wanted to attempt it, now you know how the designer actually does it.)
The NYTimes also needs to interview someone who actually understands how to translate a hand-crafted, couture piece into something satisfyingly simple (and cheap!) to replicate. (Probably not the original designer of the piece, unless they can design for the budget market. It’s a different skill-set to address the questions of “how can we imitate the luxe look and where can we cut corners? How can someone make this at home easily, with readily-available materials?” These aren’t usually questions up-market designers are asking themselves as they design, which makes someone like this probably not the best source when it comes to a post-holiday DIY.)
And for the love of Mike, have someone modeling the finished product. A designer (and writer!) should know that the hesitant reader (and DIY’er looking for her next project to tempt her away from those cookies) can be swayed by a well-executed $$$money shot.
What do you guys think? Are you DYING to try this 3-hour DIY? Or does it negate the meaning of D.I.Y….a veritable contradiction-in-terms, if you will?
xoxox
Carly
P.S. Thank you all for your kind words and well-wishes to my mother during this difficult time for her and our family. Regularly-scheduled blog content will return tomorrow. Thank you.
[youtube]AVmq9dq6Nsg[/youtube]
I never knew what Portland, OR was like until I moved here. See for yourself above…
This video had me cracking up.:-D It’s a pretty accurate portrayal of Portland…though that’s not a bad thing! (I really like living here, maybe because I missed the first half of the American 90’s experience since I was living in Japan.)
Now I have this song stuck in my head!!
xoxox
Carly
As many of you may have read, the New York Times posted an article online last month about nutria fur currently being marketed as the new “guilt-free fur.” The argument is that since the nutria (giant swamp-rodents) are a threat to Louisana swampland and are being killed anyway in order to protect this fragile ecosystem, then instead of thoughtlessly discarding the carcasses it’s better to utilize the fur. …And make it into fashion.
A designer makes necklaces out of the teeth, Etsyans craft merkin panties and jewelry out of the fur…oh, and Michael Kors and Oscar de la Renta also incorporated nutria fur into trims and linings in their recent collections. Saks is currently the largest retailer in the United States that carries nutria fur items (check out this Nutria Fur Jacket from Maison Martin Margiela!).
Remember Elaine’s “rat hat” from that episode of Seinfeld? That Russian “sable-esque” hat was supposedly nutria, according to the storyline. And maligned as “not even a good rat-hat.”
So what do you guys think? Is real fur in fashion items okay if the animal is killed as a pest anyway? Is it right to attempt to wipe out a species if it threatens a long-established ecosystem? Will people begin to embrace nutria and being to rank it on par with fur in general – or is the “ick” factor too strong?
What are your thoughts? And would you ever buy or wear nutria?
xoxox
Carly
(Or is it Spanish Elle.com?) Well, I don’t speak Spanish, but what Google Translate is telling me is that the above reads:
Featured along with other DIY blogger powerhouses such as …love, Maegan, Park & Cube, behind the seams, A Pair & A Spare, the caption under my photo reads:
It is one of the most sought-after jackets so if you have not been lucky, DIY like this blogger. Blogger Chic Steals shows you a tutorial.
(At least, I think this is what it says…please let me know if I’m totally off-base!)
The tutorial for my DIY Band Jacket is actually here (it’s not linked correctly above or on the site).
Thanks so much, Elle Spain and Paula Llanos García…I truly appreciate the feature and am so excited to be on your site!!
xoxox
Carly
Carly J. Cais I am a DIY’er, designer, sewist, maker, and marketer. Chic Creative Life is where I share what I do, and help others bring their unique style into their own lives.
