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Showing posts with label home projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home projects. Show all posts

Monday, January 21, 2008

The Time Has Come

Yes, the time has come to remove the yucky carpet in my front room. I'm going to use this room as my studio, so it will be great to sew on hardwood. It's way easier to clean up. I knew the floor was ok underneath the carpet so I wasn't expecting any surprises. Let's just say, if anything, I was pleasantly surprised with how great it looks!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Tea Dye and I

I just tea dyed my Wal-mart curtains. I actually bought the curtains at a thrift store brand new and my friend told me they were from Wal-mart. They were stark white and I don't know why I thought they would be perfect in my front room, which has no white in it. But then I thought, "Hey, can't I just dye them with tea bags?" Well, I looked up how to do it online and was disappointed to find very elaborate instructions that were way over my head (or I just didn't have the patience for). Some of them involved overnight baths, that sort of thing. No thanks. So, as commonly happens with me, I threw caution to the wind and went for it---instructionless. It turns out it could not be simpler.



I boiled about 1.5 to 2 gallons of water in my biggest pot. Once the water was boiling, I popped in 6 bags of decaf tea. Just regular Lipton. No special flavor. I kept the water boiling the whole time, but I took the bags out after about 2 minutes. Then I just dunked one curtain at a time. These are cafe' curtains, so they aren't big. I kept each curtain in for about a minute, since I wanted them to be off-white, not tan, and certainly not brown. This turned out to be the perfect amount of time. Once I rinsed them out with cold water, I put them in the dryer. It was weird how wrinkly they came out since they were a poly/cotton blend, but mostly poly. Anyway, they turned out perfect and I am very happy with the results.

Disclaimer: If you are a pro at tea dying, sorry. I'm sure this process seems silly to you. I really enjoy reinventing the wheel.