Dip-Dye Fourth of July

Fourth of a July is a big holiday for our family as it's the one time a year that we are all on vacation at the same time. 

As the kids get older, their jobs and schedules are making this harder and harder to achieve and the time we're having all together is shrinking to a weekend or even just one day. 

Every year we choose some type of wearable art project to celebrate...

 

And this year we tried dip-dying.

I chose it because it was relatively simple and we all weren't going to be there until the actual day of Fourth of July.

The kids brought both denim and white items that they already owned or that they found at thrift stores.

The first step was bleaching out the denim...

 

This step took much longer than we expected so there was lots of hurry up and wait.  

I started with a three parts water to two parts bleach mix but that was taking a long time.  Lets just say that watching denim get bleached out is akin to watching paint dry...

That's when Jim suggested industrial strength bleach.  What?  There's different bleach strengths?  He ran to the hardware store and we mixed the stronger bleach;  two parts water and one part bleach.  

That sped things up a bit but it still took us a couple of hours to bleach out our items.

After bleaching, we had to wash and dry everything before dip dying.  In hindsight, we should have bleached days in advance to save time.  Experience is the greatest teacher.

When we finally got to the dip-dying...that went incredibly quickly and the results were immediate...

Bleach pens came in handy for fixing the stray drip...



Or for use as a design element...



Ideally, we should have let each color dry before dipping in the next but it was already becoming late afternoon...



So we rinsed out the dye while the items were still wet which affected the vibrancy...

But not the fun factor...



We also found that pre-worn and old denim bleached out the best.  Really dark, new denim never quite bleached out to white...more of a gray.

And the colors were more muted...which might be desirable for a more understated look...


Not all of us chose to dip-dye.  Ellie used her bleached denim shirt as a canvas for a painted design...
 

And we have a new furry family member, Moose, who was there to help tame the zoo...

Moose is calm in comparison.
By the time we were finished, there was very little time to wash/dry our items and get dressed for the night so we scattered without a group picture.



I remembered to snap one picture after dinner and before the fireworks...

I think we all agree that we'd like to re-try the dip dye activity...especially if we spread it out over a series of days, doing one dye step at a time and letting each step dry thoroughly in the sun before rinsing.

Time was our issue this year.  A harbinger of years to come, I think.

That means we'll have to come up with another way.

Maybe I'll have to mail pre-work or prep kits to everyone next year...hmmm....

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You can see our past patriotic projects here:

2014:  Patriotic Wrap Bracelets Part I and Part II
2013:  The Jean Shorts of July

2012:  The Feet of the Fourth

2011:  Fascinators (Part I) and How We Made Them (Part II)

2010:  T-Shirts

2009:  T-Shorts

2008:  Baseball Hats

Close Call for the Nieces

End of Summer Glow

Glow night is a ritual that the kids started a few years ago when they discovered that glow lights were within their budget range...

They found them at the dollar store.

Ever since then, they have chosen one dark night every Summer and declared it glow night.

This past holiday weekend, we all gathered at the beach to celebrate the end of Summer. And the first night was dark and overcast...and the dollar store was having an end-of-season sale.  It was the perfect storm.

So we got our glow on...

And once everyone...

Was glowing to their liking...

The parade of glow began...

And we marched the five or so blocks to the beach...

In a quasi-tribal...

glow ritual...

We even had a glow mascot...

And, once we got to the dark and light-less beach, the true magic of glow night began...

The colors...they danced and dipped and bent and flowed...

A play of light and laughter.

It was glow-rious...

And so were the wizards behind the curtain...

There was even a Glowdown at the O-K Corral...

And a glow toss that delighted the late night walkers who shared the beach...

When it was over, we went for ice cream.  

And the kids gave their glow sticks to the other kids in line.  

But it wasn't only kids...there was one fifth-grade history teacher who was very grateful to receive the glow fingernails.  He planned to use them as pointers in his classroom.

And so we ended Summer by passing on the glow torch.

Unfortunately for Jack, he woke early this morning to his first day of school.

Seriously, Mom? Are we still taking first-day-of-school pictures?

Yes, Jack.  Yes, we are.  Now smile like you love it.

Happy Day everyone!

I'm off to sharpen my needles.   Woohoo!!

Tidepools on the Maine Coast

First of all, a big thank you for all of your wonderful thoughts and comments regarding my latest finish, Found on the Beach.  It feels great to finish a project and even greater when folks show up to the party to help celebrate.

I wish I could have answered you all personally but, right after I hit the "publish" button, Jim, Jack and I left on a one week road trip to Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park in Maine.



We expected to be hiking and biking through gorgeous scenery but we hadn't even considered the one thing which delighted us the most.

Tidepools.

Our first ever.

Until now, our seaside discoveries have all occurred on sandy shores so we were overjoyed to discover the beauty of rocky tide pools.

Tide pooling became one of the highlights of our week in Maine and clambering over rocks to see what wonder was in the next one gave us one of the biggest thrills of the week.  It was treasure-hunting at its best.

The challenge was getting close enough to peer into these miniature aquatic ecosystems without being scraped by barnacles or slipping on seaweed and being swept into the sea.



When successful, we were rewarded with vignettes of all type of sea life in microcosm and close-at-hand...



Red algae, periwinkle snails, dog whelks, urchins, seaweed...each one was its own composition of color and design.

The tide pools exist in the intertidal layers...the area between low and high tide.  The first layer below the high tide mark is the barnacle layer.

Since I had already been researching barnacles a bit for my last project, I was over-the-moon excited about getting to observe them up close.

When the tide drops leaving the barnacle layer exposed, many of them close up shop and wait for the sea to return.  They can survive for a few days on water they conserve inside their homes.

Barnacles that are empty have most likely fallen prey to micro predators, eager for a meal.



In this tide pool, take note of that extra-large, open barnacle just underneath the blue mussel...

It was alive, opening its trap door and extending its feathery feet to feed.  I tried to catch the feet on camera but all you can really see is a bubble indicating movement.

Below the barnacle layer is the rockweed layer.

From far away it looks like a mass of greenish brown...

But as we climbed down to get a closer look, the varieties of life were more evident.

I liked to imagine all these plants standing straight up when the sea returns, held afloat by their air bladders.

The colors and textures just blew me away.  

I am still working to identify a lot of what we saw but below you see a few periwinkle snails, red algae and what I believe is coral weed?

Periwinkle snails are very common in the intertidal zone, feeding on algae.  

This guy, with his foot and mouth extended,  looks like he's crawling across a barnacle "flower" garden...

Such variety of life.

Blue mussels...

Green urchins...

Silver-spotted anemones...

And a colony of dogwinkles drilling holes in barnacles to feast on the little shrimp-like animal barricaded inside...

This rock crab is munching on a bit of irish moss...

Notice all the other invertebrates growing on his shell...like the ivory barnacles and the little tortoiseshell limpet on his right claw.  And isn't his blotchy, purple shell a feast of color?

And speaking of feast, this colony of blue mussels is quite the meal for birds and other shell-drilling predators...

Even the rocks were gorgeous with red striping caused by iron sulfate and other minerals.  

The geology of Mt. Desert Island is equally as interesting as the marine biology and I find myself coming home with more questions than answers and tons of pictures.

And this guy...

Wants to thank all of you for his Happy Birthday wishes.

It's good to be home.

Happy Monday everyone!