do it yourself, las vegas.

this weekend i've been in las vegas!  i came down to meet Troy-boy, have a slumber party with my lovely friends Julia and Meagan, celebrate Steph & Nettie's birthdays, and spend some time with my momma.  it was the best.  [well, it IS the best, since i'm technically still here blogging from their computer.]

one of the things i wanted to do this weekend was to dye a pair of jeans.  i've been wanting to jump into the colored-jeans trend, but couldn't find a pair that was long enough or in a good color or a good fit, and we had a pair of not-so-favorite jeans that were just begging to be let out of the bottom drawer, so we figured why not??

that was a run-on sentence.  i apologize.

we started with a tutorial online... that i found on pinterest.  i read it, made sure to remember the tips and tricks and ratios of bleach to water and dye to desired saturation, and decided to give it a go.  we started with the jeans in a bucket with water and bleach. 

here they are a couple hours later, and then after sitting over night.

we washed the jeans with a load of whites [might as well put the excess bleach to use, right?] and then mixed up the dye with hot water and salt, according to the package directions.

we used two bottles of sunshine orange liquid dye,wanting to get a really nice saturated orange.  the last picture up there is just after dipping the jeans in for a second.  so fun, right?

my original idea was to dye them purple, but friday morning we went shopping and i found a pair of magenta/purple boyfriend jeans that were long [!!!!] and a really fun color and fit perfectly.  on sale.  plus an extra 30% off.  score!  so we had to think of a new color and then change our minds when we got to walmart and they hardly had any of the same colors as online.

we dunked the jeans in the dye, making sure that all the air bubbles were smooshed out and then left them to sit until they soaked up as much wonderful bright orangey-ness as possible.

these shots are after about 20 minutes, an hour and a half, and six hours.  [we left the house to do some more shopping!!]

they look so great, don't they?!  we were pretty dang excited and happy with ourselves at this point.  so we walked over to the end of the driveway, poured out all the dye, and rinsed the jeans a couple times with plain water to get all the excess off before tossing them in the washer.

and that's when we realized our mistake.  see, we are very low-maintenance diy-er's.  we didn't think that the bleaching process needed to be carefully monitored.  bad move.  once the bleach was finished sucking out all the color, it continued to suck the very life out of these jeans!  the first thing we noticed was all the buttons that tore out of the fly.  but we thought it was just from the metal rusting and eating through...

then i flipped the jeans over and kept wringing them out and...

uh oh.  that one's a little bit impossible to repair.  :(

upon further inspection we realized that the jeans were basically falling apart.  i kept wringing them out and each time i noticed more little tears all along the seams and worn-out areas.

so, in conclusion, i wouldn't necessarily call this a pinterest fail... but i would encourage anyone who wants to try dyeing their own jeans to pay very close attention.  the second those babies are bleached white take them out!!  i don't think leaving them in the dye for a long time damaged them at all... how else are you supposed to get nice, deep, saturated colors?  i blame the bleach.  100%.  oh, and also our couch-potato approach.

in other news, my mom had some caterpillars living on the basil plant in her kitchen!!  we think there were probably eggs on the leaves when she bought it and they just hatched and grew without anyone noticing.  [that's how often she uses fresh basil!  don't tell her i said that.]  there were four total.  just sitting there.  my brother and i decided that the plant needed to go.  [caterpillars are creepy.]  the whole thing.  plant, soil, pot, bugs.  and my jeans.  in the outside trash.  adios.

overall this has been a fantastic weekend.  i've had so much fun spending time with my friends who i never ever get to see, and having an entire conversation with my momma in person instead of divided up between four different phone calls, and shopping at a real mall.

but i do really miss my johnny monster.  i've decided that solo vacations are officially banned from here on out.  although, as excited as i am to see his face and give him a big smooch, i'm not so excited for the 6am departure time on my plane ticket.

redemption.

i'm not sure if you all know this about me, but i consider myself pretty skilled with a power drill.  i've built  every single thing  ok, most of the furniture we bought from IKEA, and our dining set from Target.  i even dismantled our coffee table so i could paint it, and then put it back together without any instructions [because who really saves those things?]  and i am, hands down, better at building things than John.  don't let his muscles fool you. 

so when i put that shelf up in my sewing room and it promptly fell down and all my stuff flew everywhere [we're talking unraveled bobbins in the hallway] i was pretty upset.  and embarrassed.  and i didn't want to tell John because i knew he would laugh at me.  so instead i posted it on the blog for all the world to see and judge me.  but i'm here to redeem myself today.

i put the shelf back up [and tested it!] and put all the little things that fell off it last time in a different spot.  here's what it looks like now:

much better.  if the shelf falls again, i'll only get attacked by shattered glass.  that is one of my all-time favorite pictures from college!  it's all my girls [minus Kayla because we're at the airport waiting for her] at the beginning of the most fabulous party-vacation ever!  also, that's my new OttLite!  i told you about it before, but here it is in action:

that's the ONLY light source in the room.  it's pretty dang impressive, isn't it?!  i mean, you can see the whole messy table and the true colors of everything.  i'm a sucker for HD light.  if you're looking for a great light for crafting or sewing or even just reading, these are what you need!  i bought mine at JoAnn's with a 50% off coupon.  [if you don't already have the JoAnn's app you should get it - they post all their coupons on the app and you just have to show the cashier your phone. awesome.]

alright.  i'm done giving you my sales pitch.

i'm also done blogging for the day.  we rented Big Miracle tonight and i'm going to go watch it ninety-seven times.

book worms.

have you seen this?  well, let's start from the beginning... have you seen Gilmore Girls?  you know how Rory is always reading a book?  this is a list of 250 books she reads during the series. 

Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

don't worry, i'm not going to list all of the books right now.  but i AM going to start reading my way through it. 

some of the books i've read before, so i probably won't read them again, but here's a selection of the one's i'm most excited about:

Anna Karenina  [Tolstoy]
The Art of Fiction  [James]
Autobiography of a Face  [Grealy]
The Awakening  [Chopin]
The Bielksi Brothers  [Duffy]
The Devil in the White City  [Larson]
Everything is Illuminated  [Foer]
Gone with the Wind  [Mitchell]
How to Breathe Underwater  [Orringer]
The Kitchen Boy  [Alexander]
The Polysyllabic Spree  [Hornby]
Rosemary's Baby  [Levin]
Snow White and Rose Red  [Grimm]
The Song of Names  [Lebrecht]
What Happened to Baby Jane  [Farrell]
The Year of Magical Thinking  [Didion]

i think John would really like some of the books on this list too, so maybe we'll tag-team it... that way we'll finish a little bit faster!

shelf-hanging skills.

I obviously have none.

Today was supposed to be productive, but so far I've watched two movies and made three pretty substantial messes.

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smelly couch.

um... this is awkward.  but, my couch smells like bananas.  it might just be the scentsy that i've got turned on.  or John might have had a banana in here after school [you know how the smell lingers...]  whatever's causing it, it needs to stop.

and, since this blog is essentially a record of our lives for posterity, here's an updated picture of John's bruised arm.  [you can go ahead and ignore my freakish monkey toes, thanks.]

i rode my bike to work today and now my knees are killing me.  i feel like an old man when i say that.  but it's the truth.  haha.  i didn't ride my bike for a while and i thought it would be really bad this morning, so i left a little bit extra early [in case i needed to lie down for a while when i got to work] but it wasn't really that awful.  which is a good sign.  one day i might even not complain at all!

on friday i'm going to work on projects for the farmer's market ALL DAY so i should have some pictures to show off next week!  be excited.

a little excited.

ok.  this is embarrassing.  but everyone has a guilty pleasure, right?

have you seen My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding?  because it is absolutely my favorite show.  ever.  some episodes are a little ridiculous and dramatic, but their dresses are freaking incredible!! and i kind of love trying to figure out what they're saying without reading the subtitles.  i also really love when they show little kids talking about being a gypsy... freaking hilarious.

i wont lie.  i pretty much love every single show on TLC.  even Toddlers&Tiaras.  right now i'm watching What Not to Wear, and i'm hoping that Sister Wives comes on later [because John's at work and i'm not allowed to watch it when he's home...]  BUT... have you seen the previews for their new show CRAFT WARS?!!  um... i may never leave the couch again once that comes on.  i'm beyond excited for it. 

i'm also beyond excited for my booth at the Rexburg farmer's market!!  yep.  it's official.  i'm a weirdy.  my plan is to sell tote bags and baby blankets and pacifiers with little mustaches on them.  i'm also working on a couple other things, but i don't know for sure if they'll work so i'm not going to get your hopes up... yet.


what else am i excited for... hmm... i know!  i get to meet this little stud-muffin next weekend!!

isn't he the absolute cutest person in the world?!  he's my bff's new little baby and i've only ever seen his picture.  sad day, right?  but not for long.  i'm going to go see him and smother him with more love than a kindergarten trip to the petting zoo.  poor kid doesn't know what's coming.  haha.

in other, less exciting news... John's vein was infiltrated at the plasma center.  he went in on thursday for his regular donation and it didn't turn out so well.  the needle ended up going all the way through his vein instead of just in...  this is what it looked like on saturday:

 i told him it would start getting better this week.  and i was wrong.  the lighter part is about the color of the big purple blotch on the side, and that part is a really disgusting purpley-brown color.  oh, the random dark line in the middle of it??  i have no idea where that came from.  it's just weird.

oh man!!  i almost forgot about my super exciting purchase from this weekend!!  no, not another bike.  i got myself an OttLite!  what is an OttLite, you ask?!  they're HD lights that mimic natural lighting.  i'm really excited to start using it for crafts and sewing projects that i start during the day and then never finish because the lighting in our apartment is so lousy... but i have to put up a shelf for it first  :/ 

alright.  that's all for tonight.  i have to go fold laundry.

success!

i did it!!  i bought my bike  :)  and you should be jealous.  because it's pretty dang awesome. 

at the end of my very productive thursday we hopped in the car and headed down to Intergalactic Bike Services in IF.  [yeah, that's really what it's called.]  they mostly just fix bikes there, but they also have a few for sale that they've fixed up, like mine.

it's called a volkscycle.  the people's bicycle.  it's blue.  and that's all i know about it.

and guess what?!!  i rode it to work!  yep.  lazy me rode all the way to work and all the way back.  twice.  haha.  the plan is to ride it every day.  unless it's raining.