DIY Sundays

I truly feel like a highly imaginative person....creative....as if I am not bound by the rules governing most. You give me peanut butter and sticks and I can create a bridge and be able to tell you why it would work better than most materials used in bridge construction......well not exactly but its the high I'm on right now so it seems like I could. As a child I would spend countless hours filling far too many composition books with stories upon stories upon stories...some dealing with topics I'm still confused on how I was aware of. I was the only kid in the class who enjoyed creative writing, I came up with new names for my crayons and felt my parents should send in my letters telling Crayola why they were better, preferred Lego's over Barbie and had a really bad habit of carrying on conversations with mannequins. I mean, I don't think my parents ever had dull moment with me and probably wished they had another child just so they weren't bothered by half the nonsense I came up with. I would have to say my dad's fondest memory is when I played scientist in the kitchen spending days mixing everything from Clorox to paprika to apple juice in old mason jars. I would document everything into a notebook.

1 dash of parsley....

2 tspns of Tide.....

stir 7 times then add 1/2 cup of freshly squeezed lemons...

I mean I read some of these journals a few years ago and now I understand why we were at the grocery store every week. The kicker was that I thought I had the cure to just about every disease in these jars and would leave them in kitchen on display. My parents...you gotta love them for allowing me to do this.....would let them sit wherever for as long as they could take it and then discreetly dispose of them. I kind of equate to how if you own a cat that goes outside and it brings in some random half dead animal, you are immediately grossed out but see how proud it is of its catch so you try not to throw it out in front of them but can't wait till it goes to sleep so you can.

Anywho...this imagination driven life of mine translated into a need for a creative profession and soon after a creative outlet. I went to college for Fashion Merchandising. I fell in love with (and currently work in) the visual merchandising field and how, at the retail level, you could manipulate the mood of a shopper and tap into his/her motivational drivers. And I got into making jewelry.

Where as in my childhood my driving force was to rid myself of boredom being the only child, today thanks to the Internet I am exposed to countless ideas all doable and relatively inexpensive. I mean sure you can use the amazing Google machine to figure out how to rebuild your transmission but why waste time with that when you can learn how to recreate the amazingly cute Miu Miu Swallow Maryjane's that everyone is in love with(http://www.lionstigersandfashionohmy.com/2010/04/diy-miu-miu-swallow-maryjanes.html) or take old magazine pages and turn them into wearable art (http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/recycled-magazine-necklace_2). Everyday is like a trip to some amazing store where you really can afford anything as long as you have a bit of time to spare. With such information at my fingertips I have since fell in love with all things DIY and felt like I should dedicate a day in my week to nothing but that.......So I now have a DIY Sunday.

Granted I won't be able to make every Sunday a DIY day but I am going to try my best to post something I created on my blog every weeks end and a little bit about how I did it. This week I'm writing about something that was very simple to do but also a really beloved turnout.

If you follow me on twitter (http://www.twitter.com/naughtybaubles) then you would be aware of my bleach mishap and my subsequent delirium of my blog post opening. For some reason during the summer I tend to use a lot of bleach in my DIY projects. Last summer I used to distress my jeans....along with sandpaper, paint and a sewing machine a la Balmain ...and this summer I have been using it to create unique patterns on shirts and dresses....a la Blumarine, speaking of which have you seen the A/W 2010 show!!!

Back to the dress and bleach. As I was saying, as I was doing the dress I completely forgot that bleach was toxic and soon my lungs and throat were burning with no escape in site as the whole apartment seemed like it was made of the stuff. I opened the sliding doors and put on as many fans...2...as I could and sat down to rest. After the air seemed diluted I went back in to finish.

When using bleach on my jeans I would put it in a spray bottle and spray the denim but with the dress I put the bleach in a cup and slowly poured it on the dress letting it fall where it may. The funny thing is, when you're doing laundry and bleach accidentally splashes on your favorite shirt, it immediately takes hold and causes damage. But when you actually want to damage the article of clothing, its as if that item was invincible and dyed with the most resilient of chemicals. After quite some time....about 30mins...I could see the change take place and I quickly set it in water and rinsed. I hung it to dry in the tub...it will drip color so beware...and about 2 hrs later I had a cool dress.

When I bought the dress for $8 at F21 it came with a necklace that kept it up however I didn't like it so I still have make another one but either way I really like it....

Till the next DIY Sunday....................................