Pinterest Party Inspiration: ART Party

A little eye-candy for you this morning.....

ART PARTY INSPIRATION

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Inspired to throw an Art Party yet????

DIY: Kool-Aid Dyed Playsilks

I LOVE playsilks! They are a wonderful, natural and open-ended toy and I always wanted a lovely collection for my girls. I thought I would save up and buy them a little at a time as they are upwards of $10 each.

So, I was so excited when I found out you can dye your own play silks with Kool-Aid!!!

After googling, I ran across a wonderful tutorial here on how to do this. Really the step-by-step instructions are so clear and easy to follow.

I ordered a dozen "blank" 30" play silks from Dharma-Trading Company,  headed to Ralphs for a bunch of Kool-Aid packets (embarrassing!) and spent a wonderful afternoon creating these lovely silks with the help of my toddler. {She LOVED helping mix the packets of Kool-Aid into the water. I think she could've sat there stirring and watching the color for hours!}

If you'd like to try making them too, please check out this tutorial and let me know how it goes!

Here are some pics from our first try doing this!

Blank play silks, ready to go!

An assortment of Kool-Aid....not to drink! Yikes!

Boiling the silks in Vinegar water. The Vinegar sets the color.

My daughter helped me mix the Kool-Aid into water in a glass bowl...

And then we let the silks sit in the hot Koolaid-water to soak up the lovely color!

{I missed a couple steps in my photos so make sure you check out the real tutorial!}

We hung them out to dry and they looked so ethereal fluttering in the afternoon breeze!

I was ECSTATIC about the results! Honestly, the pictures don't do them justice!!! My daughters use play silks for so many different things. They use them to build forts, play dress up, create cozy beds for their dolls, the blue one often becomes "water" in the doll's bath-tub and so much more!

You can also purchase play silks online. 

Sarah's Silks

Beneath The Rowan Tree

NovaNatural

This chart for mixing packets of Kool-Aid to achieve different colors/shades:

source

Well, that's it! I'm kind of inspired now to make some MORE!!! One of these days, I'm going to attempt making a giant RAINBOW silk like this:

Linen Closet Makeover

This week I decided to do something about our messy, disorganized linen closet in our upstairs hallway.

Before:

Everything just shoved in there, no rhyme or reason!

I don't know why I have random photo albums in here...they don't really have a home at the moment.

First, I took everything out! Most of our towels were raggedy and old so they will be put in a big bag and delivered to our local animal shelter. The random photo albums are still awaiting a home. Some don't even have any photos in them so they may be given away; we'll see. For now, they are hanging out on the hallway floor. :)

This is everything out on the floor:

{I also had a basket in there, filled with beautifully embroidered table linens from my grandmother. They are a treasure to me as she hand embroidered them herself and they deserve a pretty new box to reside in. So I carefully put those aside and they will eventually be stored in my closet}

Next...a little shopping!!! It's always fun to stock up on fresh new items for the home so I went to Target for new towels (green, blue, white and brown: three of each) and wash cloths...

plus these two cute, green baskets which are perfect for holding the wash cloths and hand towels.

We also do our ironing in the hallway so we have a spot for the iron and some related items in the linen closet.

Here are the final "After" photos.....

I'm so happy, I now LOVE our hallway linen closet. It feels so good to have fresh towels and to have everything organized.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

* I still need to do something about the extra bedding...looks a little sloppy. Any ideas? Oh well, it is still much better than it was! :)