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Dot Ikat Flip Flop: An experiment in Reverse Fabric Painting.

I recently scored this vintage wire 'sofa' for a song on Craigslist, but it didn't come with any cushions. so I scouted around my house, rearranged some stuff and came up with a cushion for the seat. I always have extra throw pillows around, so that was no problem, but now I needed to make a slipcover for the seat cushion.

I didn't want to spend any money on this project, so I used what I already had on hand. And what I had was a bolt of a beautiful, purple, linen-cotton-poly blend, heavy weight fabric I scored at Hancock for around $3 a yard on a major, major clearance sale. I love the shot of color here, but it just looked too plain to me, somehow. It seemed like some kind of pattern was necessary. Well I have approx. 12 yards of this fabric, so decided I could spare some for an experiment.

You've all seen the reverse 'dye' technique of using bleach on dark colored fabric to remove the color....kind of like reverse tie-dyeing...I thought it might look kind of cool here, so I tested a piece to see how the color would 'lift' from this fabric. If you are thinking of doing this, I definitely recommend doing a test swatch first. Many fabrics, especially black and navy blue and most dark colors have really unexpected 'lift' results. I half expected this purple to lift to very orange, but was pleasantly surprised when it turned a really pretty pinky pale purply hue....say that three times fast!

I decided on a pattern and just started painting. 

A little while later.....

A fun, playful pattern!  I was happy with the result, but since the cushion is two sided, why not try something else on the other side, right? Having 12 yards of this fabric gave me the confidence of knowing if I messed up, I would have plenty left to start over.

I've been loving all the Ikat prints that are so popular right now, so decided to try simulating one.

Really easy to do, just back and forth brush strokes of varying widths. I found quick, loose strokes worked best for the look I was going for.

I really love how this turned out, too!! Problem is, now I can't decide which one I like better! I think for that room, the Ikat one works better with the other patterns that are in there, but then I like the softness the circular print adds to all the angles....but then.....hahaha! I just can't decide! Good thing I don't have to. Since it's two sided, I can flip the cushion whenever I feel like it!

DOTS

or

IKAT

What I learned:

Definitely do a test swatch to see if your fabric 'lifts' to a desirable color.

Use natural bristle brushes to paint on the bleach...synthetic bristles will get ruined by the bleach. I learned the hard way after ruining two really good brushes!

Make sure to wash your fabric after bleach painting. Let the bleach stay on the fabric for at least 45 minutes to get the max lift, then run it through a wash cycle to remove all traces of the bleach from your fabric.

So tell me, which one do YOU like better? Let me know! 

As always, thanks for stopping by today! See you next time.

Yippeee, Yahoooo and Thanks!!

Hi friends! I am absolutely thrilled to announce I won 3rd place in the Layla Grayce/Olioboard/ Jonathan Adler Design Your Dream Room contest!! Remember, I shared my boards with you here and begged asked kindly for your vote. So I am here to THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH if you voted for me!! I can't tell you how exciting it was to hear I had even made it into the top 25 boards out of 380 entries, not to mention the fact that JONATHAN ADLER himself judged this contest which means he was looking at my work!! AND HE LIKED IT!! Allow me my Sally Field moment here....."He liked me....He really liked me!" Haha...ok, so that's a little dramatic and I don't usually get star struck but I do think he is a really groovy, cool dude and I really admire his work (I have his books!)and I AM soooo tickled to think he was looking at and liking my board! Color me HappyChic! They announced it this morning on the Olioboard  facebook page and at the Layla Grayce contest page....here are a few links to the fun.....

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.549080015118198.146602.118648364828034&type=1
http://expressyourstyle.laylagrayce.com/contests/2-design-your-dream-living-room-contest

I would post pics but I'm getting that pesky "you have used your storage space for images" notice on google....looks like I now either have to pay or move to a wordpress format....:-\

Anyway, thanks again if you voted and don't forget the Nursery Dream Room contest is currently running. You can see and vote for my board here. THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT!

New Round of Voting at Layla Grayce

The Layla Grayce "Design Your Dream Room" contest is now in the third phase of voting and for the next two weeks, it's all about Dream Nurseries. I am done having kids, but this would have been a fun thing to have back when I had mine, although I never really did a true nursery as neither of my kids ever slept in a crib....seems like they went from babies to toddlers very quickly, so a nursery never materialized. Anyway, I had fun creating what 'might' have been my dream nursery and hey, there's always grandkids....but not for a while yet!!

As always, I would really appreciate your vote!! Thanks to all of you, I made it into the top 25 out of 380 entries (13th and 15th) with my last submissions for the Dream Living Room phase, and they choose from the top 25 to select a first, second and third place winner! They haven't announced winners for that phase yet, keeping fingers crossed! So please consider voting for me in this round too! I thank you immensely!

World Music

This is new and interesting.........

Read about it here

Target Missed: No Nate on the Shelves

All across blogland, for the past six months, we have all been hearing and celebrating the hype surrounding the launch of the Nate Berkus for Target collection, set to launch YESTERDAY Oct. 21st. At 10:00 AM, I drove to my nearest Target (a Super Target, mind you) soooo excited to see the new collection, take pics and blog my heart out about it.....only to find.....NOTHING!! There was no sign of Nate anywhere in the store. I just knew that couldn't be right, they probably had some big fancy display set somewhere prominently in the store to herald the arrival of NATE! After a while of searching in vain, I asked a 'team member' about the situation and she said, very casually, "oh, yea....it might be in tomorrow." Really?! So, I'm set to head back in about 10 minutes here and see if indeed, anything came in. I guess this is happening all across the country, as I have see a few other posts about it. Just finished reading Lynda's post over at FOCAL POINT where she made some excellent points about how Target 'should' have handled this. Regardless, I know the collection will hit the shelves sooner or later, so I'm still excited to see it in person.

LOVE this

All right, I'm off to go check it out.....if it's there!

Another Olioboard for Layla Grayce's "Design your Dream Room" challenge

I talked about this contest in my last post and just wanted to let you know I made another moodboard that I entered.

Modharaja

If you saw my last post and then went and voted for my entry, I want to sincerely thank you VERY MUCH! Your support means the world to me! And if you want to go vote for my latest entry here, I would be most grateful! If you make your own board to enter the contest, let me know so I can vote for you too!

Express Your Style: Layla Grayce and Olioboard "Design Your Dream Room" Contest

In case you haven't heard, Layla Grayce has teamed with Olioboard to bring us the "Design Your Dream  Room" contest. Last week it was bedrooms, this week it's the living room, then it will be a nursery and finally, a dining room. Each week has a new sponsor and judge, and this time around it's none other than the incomparable Jonathan Adler!! There are over $4,000 in prizes and you can enter each week as many rooms as you can create! I entered two last week for the "Dream Bedroom" portion of the contest, here are my boards:

Gypsy Chic

and

Luxe Modern Lounge

If you've never used Olioboard, it's a really fun way to create rooms and explore looks you might never get to create in 'real life.' I blogged about my first ever Olioboard here.

I didn't win, but it was still fun to put these rooms together and see what other people have come up with.... I love seeing how other people design a room.....it's kinda like driving around at night, hoping people have their curtains open and the lights on so you can see in......please tell me I'm not alone and that didn't sound too weird!

Anyway, I entered again this week for the Dream Living Room and this is the moodboard I came up with:

 Bohoco

You can head over to Layla Grayce right now and create a board of your own and hey, while you're there you might as well vote for my entry too! I would love you forever if you did! Thanks a million....:-)