Cherry Blossom Shoes

So I really like cherry blossoms.  I also have multiple days a week I need to be in closed-toed shoes for proper lab protocol.  So I mixed the two.

I've had this idea for a while, but have never really had the opportunity to get around to doing it until now.  It also helped that I was recently at Target and saw these white canvas shoes by Mossimo for $17.

Blank Canvas

 The label in the shoes said that they were made entirely of man-made materials, but didn't go much into detail about exactly what materials they were.  I decided to use my Rit DyeMore dye instead of just the regular dye since the regular dye is better for natural materials.  If I do another pair, I might try using the regular dye and see how it turns out.

Removed the laces

I used about 3 tablespoons of dye in about a gallon of hot water.  After I wet the shoes in the sink, I submerged them top-down in the dye for about 5 minutes.  I was a little nervous that the boiling water would affect the rubber, but so far, so good.

Submerged in the dye

The color was darker when wet, but the change wasn't as drastic as it usually is when I work with the regular dye.  After I rinsed out the excess dye and let the shoes dry overnight, they dried down to a nice pale blue color.

Immediately after rinsing

In the meantime, I dyed the laces pink to match the pink fabric paint I would be using to paint the blossoms.  I used a tablespoon of Rit Petal Pink dye and a teaspoon of Rit Fuschia in a little under a half gallon of water.  I took a gamble using this since I had no idea which dye the laces would take, but it worked out in the end.

Tea kettles are so convenient for dye.  Also note the red towel on top of the red rug.  I'm well prepared for this one.

I attempted to ombre the shoelaces so they would be light in the center and darker on the ends, but it didn't really work out well.  I guess I didn't have enough dye to really make a difference in the saturation, but I'm not heartbroken over it.

Attempting to ombre

I rinsed the shoelaces out as well, and left them to dry overnight.

Everything fully dry

Now came the fun part.  I pulled up a picture of the cherry blossom bow tie I painted for Casey for reference, then basically did the same thing.  I made everything a little bigger since I had a bigger space to cover.  I used Tulip Soft Matte fabric paint in Chocolate, Crimson Red, and Petal Pink.

Branches and red blossoms down.  Also enjoy the Hansen's Sno Bliz cup cameo.

Sorry I forgot to rotate all my pictures before I uploaded them.

Once the fabric paint dried, I laced the pink laces back in.  All in all, I'm pretty happy with how these turned out, and I can't decide if I can't wait to wear them, or if I don't want to wear them because they look so nice and I don't want to get them dirty.  Until I figure it out, I'm sure I'll be crafting again.

Getting pictures of these was a struggle.  And of course this is the only good one.

Cherry Blossom Bow Ties

For those of you who don't know, my favorite crafty pastime is making bow ties.  I've made so many different ones, and I've learned so many different dying techniques in the process.  I've learned how to dip dye, ombré, and tie dye.

A watermelon I'm quite fond of.

Tie dyed Mardi Gras puppy bow tie

I was thinking of things that I haven't tried yet, and I realized I haven't done much in the way of painting.  Inspired by the impending springtime, I thought I'd try my hand at painting some cherry blossoms.

I soaked a solid white tie in water to help the dye absorb better.

The first thing to do was to prepare a background.  I figured a nice light blue for the sky would be a good effect.  I ombréd the blue the same way I usually do.  First, I added a little bit of water to my little plastic tub and got a solid white bow tie nice and soaked.  Then, I took the tie out, and added a kettle full of boiling hot water.  I eyeballed roughly a half cup of salt, which nicely dissolved immediately.  I ended up adding 3 teaspoons of Aquamarine Rit Dye.

Note the vinyl gloves.  Learn from your mistakes, kids.  Especially when you have to keep your nails painted for four solid months because you accidentally dyed them purple while making tights.

I don't usually worry about the neck strap too much when I dye because it ends up being hidden under the shirt collar anyway.  I accidentally got some drops of concentrated dye on the tie, so I just decided that would be the darker side.  I didn't let the dye sit too long, since I wanted a nice light blue.  The color always turns out a little bit lighter once it dries, so I pulled it out when it was just slightly darker than what I wanted.

Fresh out the dye bath.

After rinsing in my bathroom sink, the dorm gods smiled down upon me and graced me with an available washing machine.  I live in a building made to house 150+ people, and there are only 4 washers.  One of them is currently broken.  This building was not planned particularly well.

Freshly washed, hanging out to dry.

Once it dried, it ended up fading to a beautiful light blue color.  It's always tricky figuring out exactly how long to leave the dye to set, especially when it dries so drastically different from the wet color.  I guess I just got lucky this time.

Perfect sky background color.

Next came the actual painting.  I have never done this before, so I figured a few practice branches and flowers on a test scrap of fabric would probably be a good idea.  Once I painted, I realized that since I was using so little paint on the fabric itself, I didn't worry about it bleeding through.  Even if it did, I could cover it up with an identical stroke on either side.

I decided on larger branches with dots instead of individual petals.

The best part about nature is that it rarely follows a straight line.  As a result, I could pretty much take the branches in any direction I wanted.

Branches that look like veins ready for petals.

On the test strip, I realized I like the look of red layered under pink petals, so I scattered dots along the branches in red first, then pink.  I added a few blowing in the wind, as well.

Ready for pink.

I'm not going for anything too terribly realistic, so there are a lot of petals floating around in space.  At first, I was reluctant to add the pink, since the red looked so good on its own.  Once I did though, I was quite pleased with the result.

The final product.

Hopefully within the next few days, the rain will subside enough to go outside and, with my lovely model Casey, take a few pictures in the sunlight so the colors will show up better.  He doesn't know about this yet, so that'll be fun.  It doesn't rain often in Florida, but when it does, it rains nonstop for 4 days.  At least it hasn't been colder than 61 degrees this week.

Check back eventually for updates with better pictures!  I'm not sure why I was so shaky this time around.