Inkodye to die for

Have you heard of Inkodye? It's light sensitive dye that you can use on fabric, natural wood and so much more. My awesome MIL got me 3 colors and I've been having a blast experimenting with them.

For our first try, my friend Alisa and I decided to dye canvas and go with an art/sewing/crafting theme. I covered large pieces of cardboard with garbage bags and wrapped the fabric around, securing it with tape. Mix the Inkodye with water and brush it on.

Now comes the fun part! Place cutouts or found objects (the flatter the better) in a pleasing pattern on the fabric and take it outside to sit in the sun. I used buttons and Alisa used art supplies.

While the dye goes on clear, it starts to change color immediately in the sun. In full sun, the dye takes less than 10 minutes. On a cloudy day, a bit longer. We did ours in late afternoon (see how the items are casting shadows?) This is not ideal. Next time I'll do it when the sun is straight overhead. But our first try fabric still turned out really cute and we had a blast!

I'm calling mine "ghosty buttons." Because of the shadows the low sun cast, the buttons aren't as sharp as they could be but overall I still really like the effect.

Alisa's art supply inspired fabric turned out really cool too! Some of the smaller objects didn't work as well, but I love that you can see the markings and text from the clear ruler and triangle she used.

We haven't made anything out of our fabric yet, but we are thinking of making crafting utility aprons. I am also considering making a cushion for my sewing chair out of the button fabric, but the blue really doesn't go in my studio space. I'd love to hear any other ideas of what we should make - leave suggestions in the comments!

Hello. My name is Tonya and I am an addict.

It's not drugs or alcohol or even chocolate. It's Pinterest. I cannot stop.

Wait. You don't know what Pinterest is? I don't know whether or not to gush about it and encourage you to sign up, or yell "Run! Run away and don't read on!" So proceed at your own risk and know that Pinterest is wonderful but it will steal hours and hours of your life.

In their own words, "Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests."

It's a personalized, virtual bulletin board with beautiful pictures of food, clothing, home decor and anything else your little heart desires. You can categorize everything onto different boards. The best part is that it all links back to the original source, i.e. the webpage with the recipe, tutorial, online store, etc. I love that I can look at all my recipes at once.

I have been LOVING Pinterest for fashion and sewing ideas too. However this seems to have lead to a bad habit of clothing and shoe shopping online. Which makes my PayPal account sad but me squeal in delight when brown paper packages show up on the doorstep.

So what else besides recipe and fashion am I pinning? My 301 (yikes!) pins are on 20 boards including sewing inspirations, crocheting, tattoos and henna, travel, home decor, color combinations, graphic design, Halloween, gift ideas and products I want. Check them all out on my Pinterest page.

It also has a fun element where you can follow boards and people so your homepage has a cornucopia of ideas handpicked by like minded people you've chosen to follow. Pinterest will send you an email (if you want it to) to let you know when people repin your pins. I get a silly amount of pleasure when I get one of these with a huge list.

It's an ego boost. "They like me. They really like me!" Or at least my pins... But whatever. I enjoy it! Joining Pinterest is by invitation only, so if you're interested, let me know and I'll email you an invite. But remember - don't say I didn't warn you about the hours, days and weeks of your life that will suddenly go missing.

Halloween Paintings

I bought these on Etsy last week and I cannot wait for them to arrive so I can get them put up. I put my Halloween decorations out on Sunday and I have just the spot waiting for them to arrive. They are from Annya 127's shop.