TIE DYEING WITH NATURE PART II: THE REVEAL

so it’s been a few days and my shirt is dry. i rinsed out the dyes after about 18 hours and were both disappointed and pleasantly surprised with the result.

MAKE YOUR OWN HYPERTUFA PLANTERS

concrete planters are very cool. they can also be pretty expensive. fortunately, they’re SO CHEAP to make at home. i made some hypertufa planters for a friend for our low-budget diy secret santa swap last christmas and she flipped for them. i’ve been wanting to make my own ever since, and have very slowly been collecting plastic containers to use as molds.

TIE DYEING WITH NATURE

it has been a million years since i tie dyed anything. a million meaning almost 20. holy crap that makes me feel old. anyway, this time i went natural. i came across woad, a plant i had never heard of, on SESE and once i read that the leaves can be used to make a blue dye i knew i had to have it.

well i planted those seeds yesterday, and since it’s gonna be a while before i can try it out i decided today was the day to work on my natural dye game.

DIY ALMOND MILK

i hate that milk, butter and eggs are for the most part unprocessed (although you do have to go through quite a bit of cruelty to get the final product), but their vegan analogues had to be invented. have you read the ingredients on the side of a nondairy milk lately? there should only be two ingredients, really: water and almonds. that’s not so shelf stable, so manufacturers add preservatives, sweeteners, artificial flavors, thickeners, conditioners and a few other things we probably shouldn’t be drinking just so the stuff gets to our houses without spoiling.

i’ll admit that i do love my light original silk soymilk though.. i drink a little too much coffee for my own good and i’ve found it’s one of the few things that doesn’t curdle immediately in a hot mug of it (the trick is to put the milk in first, but really who hasn’t figured that out yet?). however, when i decided to make my own nondairy milk, i purposefully did not choose soybeans. i thought it would be a little too beany and instead opted for almonds.

this is almost too easy, people.

GARBAGE PICKING

i spotted a wooden vegetable crate on my lunch break a few weeks ago and told myself i would circle back for it after work and grab it if it was still there. well it was, and once i picked it up i realized it was flimsy as hell and for a second thought maybe i should just leave it in the garbage. of course i took it though- i’m such a craft supply hoarder that i knew i would regret not taking it home with me even if it was a total piece of shit.

GARDEN UPDATE & NEWSPAPER SEED POT DIY

i went out yesterday just after it started snowing for the millionth time, planning on getting peat pots, seed starter and catering trays so i could at least get my seeds going once i was snowed in. apparently home depot thinks it’s a little early in US zone 7 to start a vegetable garden (even though they’re already selling seeds), because they had no jiffy pots or seed starter. what the hell? i did get those catering trays though (stop and shop, you never let me down).

so this morning i was watching reruns of roseanne feeling antsy as all hell and decided to make my own seed pots from newspaper. why not? i’ve done it before and i’ll do it again. except all of our newspapers were buried at the end of the driveway under varying depths of snow from each storm like a freaking fossil record of current events. BUT WAIT. doesn’t SESE use non-glossy newspaper pages in their catalog? i love you, southern exposure.

ALOE ICE CUBES

my aloe plant was underloved. i left it out in the cold too long, i somehow both overwatered and underwatered it (after a million succulents i still can’t seem to get it right), and i planted it in probably the worst soil possible. it was also underutilized. it was never in the right place when i was really sunburned and i always had to run out for some unnecessarily expensive processed jelly. i needed to save this plant. i decided against propagation because i’m SO BAD at it, and opted for a more foolproof method of extending its life. making lotion requires a bunch of ingredients i’m too lazy/cheap to hunt down, and according to google mixing aloe with things decreases its shelf life and efficacy. so we freeze. everybody get out your ikea ice cube trays out.