I can craft too Emily!!

so my friend emily has this great blog called Entirely Emily where she does all these great crafts and organizational tips and recipes.  my blog is kinda boring.  i was wanting to do something fun with nina and have been itching to do a craft ever since i got back from camp.  so while out running errands - i randomly decided to go to hobby lobby - and a tshirt project (inspired by a craft i saw at camp) was born.

and because i was inspired by all of emily's crafty detailed posts - i thought i would blog about it - just for her....

so here we go....

the project - reverse tie-dye......

we started with a plain black fitted tshirt.....

 

and some foam sticker stars and letters....

we placed a cookie sheet inside the tshirt to prevent bleach bleeding through.  and because we were doing the back two, we rested the shirt on top of a second cookie sheet so it wasn't sitting on the ground....

then we arranged the letters and stars on the shirt in the desired designs - removing the back to make them stick for the bleaching....

once everything was secure on both sides - it was time for spritzing.  we filled a spray bottle with a couple ounces of bleach and diluted it with water.  then spritzed all around the letters heavily, and lighter through out the shirt.  we had to do some careful flipping to get the back - it was definitely a two girl job.....

we let the bleach sit for about five minutes or so - just till it started fading, then gave the shirt a dunk in some cold water and laundry detergent (to deactivate the bleach), rang it out really good and gave it a tumble in the dryer....









the big thing with the teens these days is that every good t-shirt deserves some original snipping....

and after nina played with scissors for awhile we had a finished product....

here's close up's of the reverse tie dye....

we're so crafty.  how you like that emily?? ;-)

nina wants to do this again - she says this one will be for sleeping and swimming.  next time we'll either start with a tank or buy a smaller fitted tshirt and not make cuts at all.  and maybe go with a red or a pink shirt.  but we sure had fun making this first attempt!!!

 



meet trouble....

it's no secret that i was quite devastated when we lost our precious sandy kitty back in april.  it kinda put me into a bit of a depression.  i always told jeff that there would be another cat after sandy.  this was never a question.  but he insisted we wait until after our june vacation....

so a couple of weeks after we got back from reno and south dakota - i started checking out the kitties looking for homes on the humane society's webpage.  but i just couldn't find a kitty picture that stole my heart.  i found sandy online first and fell in love with her there.

we had a few conditions:

i wanted a kitty young enough not to have picked up any bad habits.
i wanted a kitty young enough to not have loved someone else.
i didn't want a kitty that looked like every other gray or orange tabby - there had to be unique markings
i didn't want a tortie - because our bailey was a tortie..
jeff didn't want a black cat - cause you can't see them in the dark.
no medium or long hair cats

i mean - that's not too hard - right?  yeah.  i was getting no where with the humane society.

so in a stroke of genius - i looked at the APA webpage.  their adoption fees for kitties was "name your price" - which was very appealing to start.  they had about 90 cats in the shelter. tons of babies.  and there on page three - i found 3 kittens from the same litter and a fourth that was a rescue that stole my heart.

jacob
jeremy
jewell
penelope

jeremy stole my heart online first, but the more i looked at jacob - the more i liked him.  they looked very similar - one was gray and white, the other blue and white.  their sister jewell was a calico.  and penelope was a mishmash of colors. 

so the next day, the three of us set out to the APA to meet these four kitties.  we spent a little time with each.  jacob - timid at first but started to show personality before our time with him was up.  jeremy wouldn't come out from under the bench.  jewell was alllll over the place.  inquisitive little calico.  and penelope just sat where every she was set.  it was up for a vote between jacob and jewell - and jacob won 2 to 1.

we knew the name jacob wouldn't stick.  it took us about 24 hours to settle on his name:  trouble.

you know how most cats hide under the bed for 2 days waiting for a quiet time to explore?  yeah.  not trouble.  trouble went from one litter to another - thinks we are large kittens.  immediately wanted to be in whichever room had a person.  had to be touching someone to sleep.  and was never selfish with the purring.  and he's also a big old mischief maker. 

the more we get to know trouble - the more his name fits.  for example - his favorite pastime is attacking my head.  he wakes up with the son.  and he wants to chew on my shoes (and ate nina's ear buds).

but i'll say this - it sure feels good to hear the jingle bell of a kitty running through the house again....