Muddy Dirty Dye

It has been a while since I posted.  Last week I was a bit under the weather with a cold & sinus problems, so I wasn't up to doing a lot, not to mention that red, raw noses don't make for great pictures. But I was able to get this FABULOUS jacket refashioned up a bit.

It is a great military jacket & fits me like a glove.

This was a great purchase off of my friend who it didn't work for after she went through Dressing Your Truth.  She knew it would be loved & appreciated by me ;-). 

This jacket just needed some dirtying, so I finally got the details down of my dirtying process to share with you all.

These are the 3 dyes that I use.  I call this my "Muddy Dirty Dye".  Most dirty recipes are yellow, this one is a great brown base that looks gorgeous on a dark denim.  I shared another denim refashion a while ago & I used this recipe on it.

Muddy Dirty Dye Recipe

28 cups boiling water

1/3 cup tan dye

2 T dark brown dye

2-3 T orange dye (less on lighter denim, more on darker denim)

1/2 cup salt.

Stir everything together.  Get your article of clothing completely wet before placing in the dye.

I always use a big plastic storage bin and I wear big rubber gloves while working on it. I place item in and move around for about 15 minutes.  I move it constantly & massage the fabric to make sure it takes the dye really good.  I wring it out & rinse it in cold water until the water runs pretty much clear (I do this process in my stainless steel kitchen sink).  Throw in the washing machine on a Handwash cycle on cold & lay dry or tumble dry on extra low heat so it doesn't get that hard, stiff feel that some jackets get when they have been laid out to dry.

You can see how great it looks with being more brown.

The side by side looks amazing.

I paired it here over my fab mustard sweater shirt, my new Walmart skinny jeans I got for $13, my everyday brown boots (you have seen a lot & will continue to see).  It is hard to see, but all of the jewelry are Lindsi originals ;-).  Happy Muddy Dirty dyeing!

Denim Blazer Overhaul

12 years ago I got a job at the Nordstrom Rack.  The best perk of course was the fact that I could get my hands on some great clothes at a discount.  This jacket was one of those "have-to-have" pieces.

Remember, I said 12 years ago ;-)  I wore it a few times and lost the tie belt and never wore it again.  I couldn't really get myself to get rid of it, yet I quite despised the length, the sleeves and the color..... but I altered it to fit me like a glove.  So of course this summer I took to it finally.  I started off by cutting the bottom off like I did in this post, then the sleeves had to go.  I fold the jacket in half and used my straight edge and rotary cutters on all of it, making sure it was even on both sides.  Since I love raw edges, I just left them as they really were perfect for me.  The next step was to give it a dark dirty bath.  If I remember correctly, I used a tan, small amount of Sunshine orange and a small amount of dark brown.  The results were amazing.

It really is amazing how those few fairly simple steps completely transformed this piece.  It went from looking old and outdated, to very hip and stylish.

Here I show it with a big belt over and paired with my refashioned skirt.  I bought this skirt off of the FB Yard Sale page for a few dollars, but it was way too big and was a white and grey striped coloring.  Gave it a tan bath and while wearing the skirt inside out, pinned it down the front to get a perfect fit to my body and curves.

The result is a perfect edgy skirt that was pretty much made for me.  I adore this outfit and get compliments like crazy when I wear it all together.

Marbleizing Dye Technique

This shirt is going to be the shirt that goes down in history for having the most refashions done to it!  It started out like this....

 GORGEOUS, teal black that I really did love, but every time I wore it, it felt way too black for me and I didn't feel quite right... but that teal color is my FAVORITE!  I thought I could bleach it and just turn it back solid teal.....

 So, I bleached it.  It turned tan.

 Attempted to bleach it teal with a Kelly Green and Royal Blue mixture and it turned out this color.  VERY muted and I was not loving....

 So in a very short period of time, it visited all 3 of these.  I left it that muted green for a while, but never wore it because I really didn't like the color for me.... so why not bleach it again and try something different.

(picture forgotten here)- but I took it in it's bleached tan state and wrapped rubber-bands all over it.  I tried to do it at angles so that there wouldn't be stripes straight across, I wanted lots of texture and movement, not stripes.  I then stuck it in a seriously concentrated mixture of Scarlet Red dye.

 This is what it looked like when all soaked in and wrapped up still.  I undid all of the rubber-bands and this is what I had.

 A really great rich red and tan, but it still needed to be washed at this point (yes it did fade and bleed, but whatever at this point ;-) )

 The next matter of business was the black rhinestones.  I couldn't stand them anymore and decided to take my brown finger nail polish and quickly coat each one with the brown.  You can see that the left upper section has brown and the right is black still.  It was just that bit of change to tone it down and not be so stark.

 Here is it outfitted.  You can see that it did fade and I have to admit I was bummed about how much it faded.... I LOVED the deep rich red it started out to be, but sometimes it is just really hard to get the really deep coloring with dyeing.  At least it is to a point that I will for sure wear it often.  This shirt is so blasted soft and comfortable, that I wasn't willing to give it up.

I paired it with this fabulous belt that my neighbor picked up at the thrift store and gave to me.  I didn't have to do a thing to it, it was perfect as is.... it's amazing how someone considered this trash I consider a serious SCORE!  I would have paid decent money for a belt like this because it would be a staple!  The boots were a great find for about $6 at a Yard Sale.... The shirt itself was a thrifted find also, originally from the Buckle I believe.  A store I love but never willing to pay their prices.

So I am calling it quits for this shirt.  I think 5 refashions is enough for 1 shirt.  Aren't you glad you have me to make mistakes and test things out for all of you so you know what to do and what not to do..... ;-)

Corduroy Jacket Dye

I bought this jacket on my local FB Yard Sale page back last fall for $1.  In the picture, it looked tan.  When I arrived to pick it up, I wasn't happy about the color, but bought it anyway.  

I tried giving it a dirty dye bath, but that still didn't give the color I wanted

SO, I went with a brighter color by giving it a bath in some Kelly Green dye.  The color took beautifully & I am happy with the way it turned out.

Here I have it paired with jeans, a tank I got from a friend, shoes & brown cuff from the FB Yard Sale page for $3 each. The other bracelet is a coil one I made.  A very inexpensive outfit, even though I have quite a bit on..... LOVE creating outfits on a budget!

Denim Bleach

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend!  I headed up to our cabin with my family and while up there, I worked on a project I hope to finish and have posted this week, so stayed tuned ;-)

I purchased these denim leggings from Forever 21 last year.  I wore them quite a few times, but decided that the color was just way too saturated for me and needed to be a lighter color.  They really were almost a black/blue denim.

 I decided to throw them in my washing machine on the soak cycle with about a 1/3-1/2 cup of bleach to see what would happen.

To my surprise, they turned out this awesome blue color, which I then dipped into a tan dye just to give them a bit of dirty affect.

 Here is the Before and After

and today I paired them in a casual look as it was my 2 older girls first day of preschool and there was going to be lots of running around, as well as my 2 year old burned the bottom of her foot this weekend and got the biggest blister I have ever seen, which means I am carrying her everywhere.

I needed to be comfortable to do all of the running around and all of the carrying that needed to be done with my 3 little girls.  I am extremely big on the fact that you can still be a mommy-on-the-go and dress in cute, comfortable clothes that are not work out or lounge clothes.  

Not only am I really big on making things work, but I am really big on thrifting also.  This cardigan I purchased on my local Facebook Yard Sale page for $5 and then dunk it in a dirty tan dye to take out the white, my white shirt also got a tan dye and the necklace I am wearing was given to me by a sweet friend who knew I would love it.  The green braided cuff was a make a while ago out of the sleeves of a shirt I cut up and the wood cuff I I bought on ebay for $3.  I love creating outfits on little money and making things work for me!

Tan/Navy tank turned Red/Purple tank- Bleach and Dye

Something about me, I am not afraid to take risks.... at least in the smaller ways ;-)

 I had this shirt that I absolutely loved everything about it, except that I am not a fan of Navy.  Not to mention that the navy had kind of bled and created some funky looking blue marks all over the shirt.  The pattern on this shirt was perfect and funky, I absolutely LOVED the back weave pattern and of course was determined to find a way for me to absolute love EVERYTHING about it.... so I took a chance and I threw it in the washing machine on the soak cycle with about a 1/2 cup or so of bleach and decided to see what it would do.  Of course I got moving and forgot to snap a picture of the bleached look, but the navy was faded a bit and the tan sections were white.  The navy blue weave section turned a pinkish tan color.  As it turned out all bleached, it wasn't going to work, but I wasn't planning on stopping there.

After the bleach I created a dye bath in a Wine Rit dye.  With my background in art and design  (lots of color mixing in my background), I knew that the white section would turn red and the red mixed with navy would hopefully give me purple.  Which is exactly what it did!

 This is what it turned out to be!  The weave went red which is gorgeous and the shirt colors turned out perfect.

 I love this back which is the real reason why I love this shirt so much.

 The metal studs were originally silver and I took my Gold fingernail polish and turned them all to gold very carefully.

 I paired this top with a very stylish yet comfortable pair of shorts to take my girls to the park.  So with this great top, I was able to put together a great Mommy-on-the-go outfit that is comfortable and easy to move in, yet is way more stylish than a pair of work out clothes or lounge outfit.

 So, the before and after.

I took a chance and I ended up LOVING this one!

In a future post, I will go over the steps of dyeing and bleaching with pictures.  This was a project before the blog was created and I was lucky to have taken the pictures I did :-)

Take a chance, you may love what you come out with.