Clothing as art?

     I was very excited to find that there was a clothing show at the Gallery IS (yes IS, is the name of it). But when I went to check it out last Saturday, I was sadly disapointed. Why is it that I am always disapointed?! I don't think I expect anything too terribly huge. I suppose it is still too much to expect. Anyways, I got there to find that the "show" was in a tiny litlle corner, of the rather small gallery.
    
     The artist was Valerie Turbak, of whom I took a "clothing design" class from once upon a time. I guess it was all right, if you had very little sewing skills, and didn't really want to learn real clothing design. Alas! Once again my expectations were too high *sigh*. Anyway, at least it made me want to learn the real stuff. So I marched to the college library and got out a pile of books on pattren drafting! You can visit her Etsy shop here. There is a video interview you can watch here. And now, on with the pictures!

A top made from a button down.

Screen prints on paper.

Another remade button down.

More screen prints on paper.

Bags she made, with screen prints.

More screen prints on paper.

Still another (sorry about the glare)

Her artist statement.

The squirrels have gone squirrely!!!!

While I was outside getting some pictures of my outfit, I saw this squirrel and snapped some pictures of him. He's so cute! But sadly since last summer some crazy squirrels have been eating our laundry! We always have hung out laundry out on the line (you just can't beat that fresh smell!) but now suddenly they have decided to chaw big holes in out clothes!!! Maybe they've gone awol! But as much of a pain as they can be, those darn little critters are cute!  

The outfit of today!

My skirt was freshly pressed. But sadly I didn't think to include my accesories :(

After I got home I took another picture, but alas the skirt is a little rumpled. That's what I get for sitting down in a linen skirt!

This is a record! The above outfit cost only $6.50CAN! $6.50!!!!! The skirt was $1.00, shoes $1.00, socks $1.00, the purse $1.00, the necklace I made, and the shirt was a huge price of $2.50! Wow! At times I amaze even myself :D And all of this stuff was new, except for the purse which is my most favorite vintage find of all time!

How to Make a Initial Stamp!

If you have ever wanted to make your own stamp....well here it is!

Here is a list of what you will need:

1. An old Gutermann thread spool
2. A Exacto knife
3. Something to cut on (I just used my notebook, but you may want to use a cutting mat to be safe)
4. A pen or pencil
5. A eraser (I used a EZ Erase by buffalo, you don't want one thats too stretchy, more crumbly and sort of hardish....if any of that made sense)
6. Some ink or paint to try it out with!
7. Some paper to stamp on

The ingredents.

Start by tracing the shape of the spool on to the eraser.

Cut out the shape, being sure to go directly down. Shave bits off, untill it fits snugly in the end.

Draw your initial backwards on the eraser. Make sure that it's backwards now! Because if it is the right way now, when you stamp it will be backwards!!! Ahhhh! Oh no! So avoid that.

I thought I took a picture of the cutting away of the exess, but I guess I didn't. Basicly just cut staight down around the shape of the letter. Then horizontaly cut up to that line, and pull out the bits that should now be loose. After that you pop the eraser into the spool, and you are done! Now to try it out, I just used some paint applied with a paint brush, because I was too lazy to go dig out the ink pads (it's a lot of digging, and I mean a LOT)   

Stamp, stamp, stamp, stampity stamp! Yay! It worked!

I cut out a circle of craft foam and glued it on the top with Weld Bond. Before I glued it on though, I stamped the "J" on the foam, just because it makes it looks so much cuter! Enjoy your stamps :)

Physicians Formula Organic Wear Eyeliner

     I blogged before about the Physicians Formula Organic Wear Masscara and I liked it so much I decided to try the eyeliner too. I got the black woods color and it is a really nice deep expresso. Let me tell you, this stuff is great! It isn't too hard, or too soft. It is richly pigmented, and glides on easily. It even lasts well the whole day. And like the other products in the line, the ingredents list is understandable! I also am a big fan of the fact that Physicians Formula has the ingredents listed on their website. From my experince, most companys make it more difficult to find out what they put in their cosmetics(unless I suppose you look at the package [but if you throw the package away, then you have to go all the way to the store, or search through a huge list on the internet]) Over all I love this line! But I am very sad that the selection in my local Shoppers Drugmart is a lot smaller than I would like. They use to have more, but then they cleared a bunch of the Organic Wear out. I think it must be because when the line is new they get a pile of it in, but when it starts getting a litlle older.... Kaboom! They clear it out to make room for the new stuff! Grrrrr! Well, what if I liked the old stuff?! And what if I don't care about all the new stuff?!!! Yes...well....*ahem* I suppose I should stop my ranting now. The point of this post is that I love this eyeliner, and I would recomend it to anyone.

My Sunday Outfit + Ramblings

     I have gotten one vote on my poll so far, and it was for more photos. So here are some of the outfit I wore yesterday! And please vote in my poll, I love to get some feed back. Or leave a comment! Just don't be shy :) Also I am so excited that I got 53 visits yesterday! How much better could it get?! A great outfit and 53 visits!! Ok, for me that's a big deal, 10 visits was the most I have gotten before. I should have posted my dyeing tutorial on the Threadbanger fourms sooner! Thanks to everyone for stopping by, and please come again! :D

     And now about the outfit! I found everything while thrifting, the skirt I got for about $4, the cardigan I got in a bag sale so I think it cost around $1, the silk shirt I got for $1, the purse I got for $2.50, the shoes were $15, one of the necklaces is really old that I got from my aunt, the other necklace I got as a gift from my sister and the socks are Chinese Laundry I think they may have been $1 too. Okay, I guess not everything was found while thrifting, the socks are new. So the grand total comes to *drumroll* $24.50! It just goes to show you don't need to spend a lot to get a great outfit! I actually have had a $10 outfit before I think, but it didn't have such good quality shoes with it.

Fashion Does Have Borders......

Fashion Has No Borders was sad....just sad. They apparently didn't allow cameras, but I thought I would sneak some pictures anyway because there were some people(maybe from the press) taking pictures. But then I was looking around to find something good to photograph....well let me tell you, it was so pathetic I didn't even bother! Why do I always end up going to these things, and they turn out to be some kind of a joke?! Arrrgh! I know why, connections! I need some connections to let me in on the good stuff. Connections to get me invites to the real events. I did get two compliments on my shoes though. One older lady asked me where I got them, and then she told me she remembered when they where popular. Oh and she also said she liked them! Then I was walking by a vendors booth, where there were two ladys, and they where kind of looking at my shoes, then I heard one say: Aren't those great shoes? Hmmmmm.... Maybe I do like them after all, plus they are comfortable enough to wear all day! So, back to the expo. If I had even caught a glimpse of the outfit that is on the website and on all the brochures, it may have been worth going all the way to Calgary! But there was nothing of the sort, not even related in the least bit! Aaaagh!!! On the upper left you can see a few pictures of the great outfit I wore. I made the dress and necklace! :)

Oh, and we went to the TNT chinese market where I got these cute marshmallow candys, that have strawberry inside! And some little strawberry stick things....they just looked too cute!

They have sayings on them!

How does one wear jazz shoes?

Well I have searched and searched, and haven't found much....So now I am brainstorming on just how to wear my new pair I blogged about quite a while ago. I did however find this great picture of a girl wearing some stable boots. I love it! I bought a pair (actually the same day I bought my jazz shoes) but they are a sort of tan, so I am thinking of maybe darkening them. They look so great on her, it makes me want to try wearing them again! Click here for the website. If you have ideas on how to wear my jazz shoes, leave a comment! I would to hear your ideas :) I am so excited for Fashion Has No Borders tomarrow!! Yay!

Fashion Has No Borders

I am super excited for Fashion Has No Borders!! It's a huge fashion expo in Calgary that has all kind of vendors, fashion/beauty schools, hair stylists, makeup artists.....and everything fashion!!!! You can visit the Fashion Has No Borders website here, for more information. I'll have to take tons of pictures this Saturday! :)

Momma, I've got a pain....I think I'm gonna dye.

     On spring break I finally got some time to try out dye painting. I had a hankering to try it out for the longest time. And I am so excited I got to do it!!! (yes, spring break was a long time ago...I may be a little behind on my blogging)
     I looked everywhere for instructions on how to do it, all I could come up with was this, and it isn't even about fiber reactive dye. I used half the recipe from the above link. So here's how I did it.

Bunny our cat decided to get in on the action :) First of all you will need: Urea(4.79), Soda Ash and Sodium Alginate SH (9.49)  Get sodium alginate SH not F, unless you are dyeing silk. I got this stuff at our local art store, the price I paid is in brackets ( in CAN dollars). You will also need: medical gloves (rubber gloves are rather cumbersome), a bucket, a paint pallet (or egg carton), paint brushes, measuring spoons and cups (not to be used for food after), glass jar, dust mask, 4oz. squeeze bottles (I found mine in the cake decorating section of Michaels), plastic garbage bags to cover your work surface and Jacquard Procion MX dye in the colors you like. Oh yes, and you will also need something to dye. The more natural fibers the better, I used.a 100% cotton shirt. 

    

Put 1/2tsp. of Alginate SH into 1 cup of warm water.

Get a good grip on the jar, and shake it like crazy! When it's as mixed as it's going to get from shaking it, you may want to use your gloved fingers to squish out the big lumps.

It should now be kind of like a pourable gell, mostly lump free. I didn't manage to get them all out, but it seemed to work out all right.

Measure out 1/4 of the mixture, then pour into your bottles. It should be enough for about four bottles (one of my bottles was about half as full as the others, I must have spilled a bit).

Then add 1/2 tsp. of dye, and shake it up till it's all mixed up. Make sure to use the dust mask when using powdered dyes. If you inhale it you can get lung sensitivity, and that would end your dyeing forever. SO BE CAREFULL!!! And keep a wet cloth handy to wipe up any spilled dye, before it drys. If it drys it could become airborne, and that's not good.

Soak your shirt in some soda ash water for 45 min. After that, wring out the excess. Now you can either lay it out on some plastic to dry, or you can start painting right away. If you let it dry first, you will get more control and less bleeding. If you paint on it wet, it makes more of a watercolor look. This shirt was done wet.

Lay the shirt out on a cut open garbage bag. I put some strips of a bag inside the sleeves and in the body of the shirt so it didn't bleed through. Next start painting whatever you can dream up, I did a landscape with trees.

Paint...paint...paint...

and paint...and paint..

Ta da! A fresh spring landscape!

I folded the hood up and folded the arms. If you have a lot of detail, or don't want it to get smudged, put some plastic in between. I just have clouds, so I didn't care.

Sandwich the shirt between two layers of plastic, then roll it up and let it sit for 24 hrs. Then wash out the excess dye. Make sure to wash it really well, so you don't end up turning purple if someone dumps a bucket of water on you! This is speaking from experience.....