TIE DYE FOR ADULTS

Tie dye. When was the last time you did tie dye? Gosh, for me it was during summer camp when I was in elementary school. It was the typical obnoxious primary colors on a t-shirt that rarely got worn. 

Now you see "tie dye" popping up more and more when it comes to being incorporated into home decor. The biggest decor trend regarding "tie dye" is found in African indigo mud cloth. 

photo creds: Brit + Co

Tie Dye has been found to date back to between 500-810 AD in Peru, Asia, and Africa then being brought over to the Western world. Colors were found in nature from the use of berries and leaves being ground down into pulp and left outside to dry. Once they were dried out, ash and water was added to the died berries and leaves to create a dye. Then the hand woven fabric was twisted and manipulated different ways and dipped into the dye and left out to dry. It is truly amazing how ancient tie dying was done, and still is done today in some places!

Well I do not have the time nor patience to gather berries and leaves to make dye. Nor, do I have the time to hand weave fabric. I don't think any of us have that time. Well some do. But not me haha.

I wanted to make some fabric that I could use to cover pillows, and more specifically an ottoman that I just bought. So I went back to my childhood and had some tie dying fun!

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• Tulip Fabric Dye Navy Blue (and black if you want a deeper color)
• Cotton, linen, or some other type of natural fiber fabric
• Large plastic container
• Rubber bands (of different sizes)
• Plastic drop cloth

I wanted to give the fabric I picked out two different types of patterns. For pattern one, I folded the fabric to look like this

To achieve this, all you need to do is take your fabric and fold it like you did construction paper when you were little and made paper fans. So horizontally fold the fabric like an accordion. Once you get to the end, roll the fabric up like a cinnamon bun and put a rubber band around it to secure it. Where ever you put the rubber band is where the dye will stop running up the fabric. It acts as a barrier. 

For the second pattern, I folder the fabric to look like this

For this pattern. You are going to do the same accordion folding and then fold it in half and do different ized rubber bands going down the fabric. I did a few overlapping each other to give it a thicker area that will remain white. (Next time I will probably get a bit thicker rubber bands)

Follow the directions on the bottle of dye for proper dying. For mine I boiled 2 gallons of water and added half a bottle of my dye to it. Next time I will probably add the whole bottle OR add half of the Navy blue bottle and half of a black bottle of dye to give it a deeper more drastic color.

I then placed the fabric in the dye for 10 minutes.

With the fabric that was rolled up. You just want to stand it upright in the dye. You will see the dye start to travel up the roll but don't worry, it will stop at the rubber band. My water did not cover my fabric, so I rotated it throughout the 10 minutes. 

After the 10 minutes I took the fabric out of the dye and let them sit on the plastic drop cloth for 5 minutes. Then, I took the rubber bands off and hung the fabric up to dry (which only took 2 hours).

Ain't she a beaut?!

See why next time I will use thicker rubber bands? I want the white lines to be a bit thicker. But hey it's ok, as long as I and YOU can learn from it!

Once they were dry, I washed them in cold, JUST cold water. No detergent. NADA but COLD WATER. I washed mine on delicate. The color may fade a bit, which is another reason you might want to add a little black to your dye mixture or add a whole bottle of the navy blue. Have fun with it, experiment with the colors. Then, I dried them on medium heat and ironed them to lock the color in and obviously smooth out any wrinkles.

I ended up using pattern TWO to recover a new ottoman I just bought. This was the ottoman BEFORE

I scored it at GOODWILL with a matching coffee table ALL for only $10! When the worker at GOODWILL told me they came together I literally said,  "SHUT UP! Well I don't mean shut up, but I am shocked! I'll take it!" All it needed was a little loving'

And here it is AFTER with the new fabric 

SO MUCH BETTER! 

Tie dye is no longer a little kid activity! It CAN be for adults and it can be used in fun and unique ways for home decor. I'm going to end up using pattern ONE for some throw pillows ;)

*UPDATE*

I ended up experimenting with dye colors and I found the perfect mixture. Like I stated above, I bought Tulip (powder) black dye. I mixed half of the packet of black dye with a bottle of Tulip (liquid) navy blue dye in 2 gallons of water. I let the fabric sit in the water for 15 minutes. I stirred it for 10 minutes and let it sit for 5 minutes. And WOW! It made a BIG difference.

It is actually indigo now and not that soft blue (which I still like and am going to use but I had in mind indigo for our ottoman).

And since it came out the color I intended it to be, I ended up recovering our ottoman

SO, SO much BETTER! And it will find more stains ;)

happy decorating

GOODWILL COFFEE TABLE TRANSFORMATION

Hey there beautiful people! It has been such a lovely week! I had off work all week. You know when you just go, go, go and you are so used to going, so much so that you don't realize how badly you need rest? That is where I was at. This past week I did some work around the apartment but for the most part I laid in bed and worked on papers, but mostly laid in bed! It was so GLORIOUS! And now that the my week of rest is over, it is time to get back to work and the real world!

I wanted to share with you all a piece that I am so thrilled with in our living room; our new coffee table! If you look back at my earlier posts you will see how different our apartment looked. Like REALLY different. EMBARRASSINGLY different! My husband and I were actually just talking about that. I have said it over and over again, but I will say it AGAIN for any new readers to my blog....when we first got married 90 maybe even 95% of the stuff in our apartment was given to us by our families. From couches, to tables, to decor, etc there was not much that we picked out for ourselves. We were so grateful that we had people in our lives that wanted to make sure the starting off our lives was comfortable and GAVE us stuff so we didn't need to go out and spend a ton of money. Now that we are more established we are able to afford getting things that are OUR style. I still buy 90% of our stuff at thrift stores or antique malls but to us its "new". It makes me happy to walk into our apartment and see it decorated with things that are OURS.

Ok so now to what this post is actually about. For the longest time we had a farmhouse style coffee table. It was beautiful. I loved it. It served its purpose BUT it was not our style. (It is possible to love things but not want it for yourself). It was something my in-laws gave me when I moved into my first place during college (THANK YOU!!).  I refurbished it and for years it served its purpose and was wonderful. But I ended up selling it. It's actually my first sale listed on the SHOP page of my site! 

So with that table gone, we had no coffee table for about a month. Our style is very eclectic with a bit of boho flare in there so I wanted to get something that was glass. I wanted it to serve the purpose of a coffee table but did not want it to be a big bulky piece that took away from other pieces in our family room. I wanted to show off our rug that I adore and our last coffee table didn't do that. So I saw this Maurice Coffee Table  that was perfect BUT it retailed for $765....$530 on sale. That was no where near what I was willing to pay for a coffee table!

the Maurice Coffee Table I originally saw. Pretty right?!

 So I held off on getting one because I KNEW I would find the perfect one for the perfect price...eventually! There were certainly times where I saw one that I wasn't thrilled about but I knew we needed one and was tempted to get it but I just couldn't be wasteful and buy something unless I KNEW that I KNEW it was something I loved!

So this past week I went to Habitat Restore. Keeping an open mind, knowing that there was a good chance I would not find something I would like. But then I turned the corner and saw coffee table after coffee table fill this row!! I knew there had to be something in there that I would like. BOOM I see this glass coffee table and my eyes lit up! Not to mention it was only $60, um STEAL!

This is what it looked like when I bought it. It was an "interesting" green color with specks of black within it. It almost looked like a faux marble....not the prettiest thing. I thought about painting the base a matte black but my original idea was gold to match our nesting table set and our gold side table by our ghost chair. 

Gold won!

I have a few friends who never used spray paint to paint furniture. And I am hear to tell y'all that it is AMAZING! Seriously I have painted nearly everything with spray paint. It gives an even coat of paint to the object you are painting, it doesn't leave brush marks, and it is quick and easy! I have never been disappointed using spray paint. Especially not GOLD spray paint. I mean come on its gold, how could I ever be unhappy?!

after two coats of Rust'Oleum Gold Metallic spray paint this is what it looked like! Rango is sniffing it to see if he approves! And no, I didn't spray it inside I just wanted to be safe and not take a chance of any paint getting on our rug!

I let it dry for a few hours and then removed the paper towels from the legs and TADA!!

gold was the way to go!!

I am so happy with the glass top because you can still see our beautiful rug.

and just because it is beautiful doesn't mean it isn't everyday functional! We still throw our feet up on it, although that has always annoyed me a little bit with any table for some reason, I think I need a little ottoman

I am SO happy with this coffee table. I wish you could see me through the computer screen right now. God truly knew what I wanted and blessed me with something that is beyond what I imagined and I got to do what I love and paint it to really make it OURS! 

Don't be afraid to hold off on buying things until you are head of heels in love with it! And don't be above going to thrift stores and Goodwills and Habitat for Humanity and wherever else that isn't a name brand store. You are guaranteed to find a treasure at those fun shops and a treasure with a friendly price tag! It may not be the color you envisioned but thats the beauty of IMAGINATION and PAINT!

*My next post will be on how to properly decorate a coffee table so it not only looks beautiful but it is also functional! STAY TUNED*

happy decorating

You Will See Changes

Good morning beautiful people! I woke up this morning to go to work and my car had ice on the windshield....ummmmm WHY?! I feel like it went from summer to winter and completely skipped fall. This is not ok, but hey it gives me an excuse to go buy this bomber jacket I have had my eyes on hehe.

So I have not posted photos on my blog in a few days. I'm sorry. I'm a bit bummed that I have not done so BUT I will very soon and they will be beautiful photos BECAUSE my husband got me a new camera for my birthday! I am sooooo excited to get this camera! Since I am new to the blogging world I realized in order to catch peoples attention and keep it I needed to make sure not only my content but my photos are on point. So, thank you Hubby for blessing me with a birthday gift that I will be able to use daily :)

So I have been debating whether or not I want to write this post for a few days now and this morning I finally decided, "alright lets just do it!" So here is a little venting post. Mostly because you will be seeing changes to our home and I do not want people to think I am not living by what I have said Rebely Decor is, and that is; showing y'all that you can make your home beautiful with the hand-me-downs, unloved, thrifted, old items, and DIY's.

Someone made a comment to me that I was changing things I claimed to "love" in my home. Well first, to you who said that I know that you were throwing a little shade at me, and boo thang, I can take a little shade ;) and second I do love our home. I love all the pieces within our home HOWEVER what y'all need to know is literally 90% of our home is decorated and furnished with things that were given to us when we first got married. My parents, in-laws, and grandparents gave us stuff that they were getting rid of to help us out while we began our new lives together (thank you guys, you ROCK!) Was it our style? No, not everything we got we would pick out for ourselves, but we made it work and we were so thankful for it all! Now that my business is starting to do well I don't see an issue with taking parts of my earnings and putting them towards getting stuff that my husband and I like. Stuff that we would choose for ourselves. We talked about how half of my earnings will go into our savings that we both contribute to for our future house and the other half will go into my business account that my husband set up for me to use to get more inventory or what ever I'd like.

My husband busts his butt at work and makes the majority of our household income, and I am beyond grateful to have such an awesome provider; yet I know I am not alone when I say this, but I sometimes feel guilty using the money he works hard for to buy stuff for our home when we don't necessarily NEED it, but I just WANT it to make our home beautiful. I know it is OUR money and I bring a portion to the table as well but I don't know, I just feel bad sometimes going out and buying a new rug or a new chair with money that he earned. Ugh that sounds so silly when I say it :/ I know with time I will start to accept and be comfortable with the fact that what we make separately is still OURS as a couple, it may just take a little longer than a year of marriage to completely embrace it. 

So, to the person who made that comment to me, our "new" couch, it was given to us by our amazing friends. Our new rug, I got for extremely cheap from a seller I buy rugs from for customers. My "new" turkish rug, I found at Goodwill for $15. When I get "new" things for our home the majority of it is from thrift stores or Goodwill and I transform it into something "new". My new ghost chair, well that is brand new cause shoot ghost chairs are SEXY! I am finally understanding what our style is and I am now buying and creating things to exemplify that style. 

There is nothing wrong with getting new things, especially if you are looking to have things that are actually chosen by you and not chosen by others then given to you. I still do love our  home. I still do buy most of our stuff that is budget friendly. I am just now getting things that showcase OUR taste and not our parents or grandparents and I am not going to apologize for that!

A Home is Built in Time

Hey there décor people! I’m currently sitting on my couch with Mr. Rango watching Glee pushing off going food shopping cause this weather is STANKKKKKK. That and I have a butt load of stuff to do around the apartment. Our sink is just about to overflow, I have laundry that is screaming to be folded, a couch that needs vacuuming because Rango decided to shed and create another animal with all his hair…but as I stood in kitchen making a mental list of what needed to be done today, I just looked at our 900sq ft apartment and felt comfort, I felt at home. “Well duh, it is YOUR home, why wouldn’t you?” I shall explain. I have lived in 2 other apartments since being married, and in each one I was so focused on wanting brand new things cause I thought that is what would make me love our home, and when we couldn’t afford them I would get a bit bent out of shape. I wanted new furniture, I wanted a new headboard for our bed, I wanted a new dresser and this gorgeous tv stand that I had my eyes on for some time. You know, if we bought everything I wanted right away it would cost us a good 2 grand, AT LEAST. As newly weds and just starting out in our careers, dropping 2 thousand dollars was not a priority or realistic. And going into debt just because I wanted new things was not something we were willing to do.

SIDE NOTE If you like brand new things, if you can afford to buy high-end items for your home that is great! I have plenty of friends who do and their homes look stunning! I am not bashing that at all, REMEMBER this is a blog aimed towards BUDGET FRIENDLY DÉCOR and making a home beautiful for LESS!

Ok back to business……Soooooo, our first apartment I loved but I was not happy with it because I was not grateful for what we already had. I did not see the beauty in the hand-me-downs. I did not appreciate the things we got for the cheap. I was “OK” with it but was not thrilled. Then we moved to our next apartment. And I became more content. But that “content” feeling was brought about because I would spend way too much money on décor and then a month later not be happy and go and spend more money to replace the stuff I just bought a month ago. Example. I bought some new wall décor because we “needed it”, now almost a year later I have gotten rid of just about all of it. Not because it wasn’t nice, but because we did not need it. I overloaded on buying EVERYTHING AT ONCE and in doing so I bought things I eventually was not happy with. I just got them, to fill our space and it caused me to never feel at peace or comfort in a place that was supposed to be our home because I was never happy with what I already had and was constantly striving to make it better. Fast forward to our recent move to our current apartment. We got rid of A LOT and just kept the things we needed and loved. We kept my husbands dressers that he had since childhood, our couch (that I painted and love) and end table from my in-laws, our nightstands that I got in college, our 15$ book shelf from Wal-Mart that I painted, our coffee table that my in-laws gave me in college and I turned into an ottoman, our metal filing cabinet I found at Habitat For Humanity, our dining table our in-laws bought us, and a tv stand we got for 10$ at a thrift shop.

Our apartment was bare, it was simple, it was a blank slate and I LOVED IT!  I was not in a rush to fill it up and decorate it. I wanted to slowly add things to our home that I knew we would love and want to keep for years to come. My first purchase was an old pea green retro velvet chair. I am in serious love with this chair, like for real I just stare at it sometimes, it’s kind of weird. I found it at an antique mall and was able to bargain for it and got it for 40$. My next purchase was 2 yellow industrial bar stools cause we needed some seating at our bar since we don’t have a dining room in our new place. I was able to get both of the stools for 45$ (originally 90$). Since we got rid of our bigger couch to make more space, our sitting was a bit limited for when we had company over so I was then on the hunt for a chair. I was checking craigslist and different websites but I either found something I liked and it was expensive or I found something that was cheap and I was not thrilled about it. So for about 2 months we held off on getting anything and I kept searching and one day I found a vintage navy blue wingback chair in our neighborhood bulk dumpster! I freaked out! And just to clarify, the bulk dumpster was for furniture ONLY, no trash was in there, EW. I called my husband and told him to get his truck and we loaded the chair up, I sanitized it and now we have our extra seating and we didn’t have to pay a penny for it!

Over the next couple of weeks I collected some old frames for less than 1$ apiece and hung them up for some wall décor, I got some old items from thrift stores, I found some neat little items in Target’s HOT SPOT, shopped around our apartment and took things that we both had for years and refurbished them, and SLOWLY but surely our apartment has come together; in my opinion, BEAUTIFULLY. Every time I walk into our home I fall in love with it over and over again. I feel comfort and cozy, and not just because it’s a small apartment, but because almost every item in our apartment has meaning to it, whether given to us by our families, brought from childhood, from another era, previously owned,  or refurbished and given a second chance. It’s a special place, it’s home.

I have learned that your home does not need to be filled RIGHT AWAY. It does not need to be fully decorated within days of moving in. A home is made a home in time. It is the unique, old, run down, new, antiques, weird, family items that make your home YOURS!



happy decorating

Don’t Forget YOU Live There

           

            We live in a world that is so focused on appearance. Make sure your hair is always perfect, be dressed in the latest fashion, get those eyebrows on FLEEK, have a big house and nice car even if that means struggling to make the payments. My struggle with appearance comes in the form of décor! I would look through magazines, see my friend’s homes, or even worse; look at PINTEREST and all of a sudden I am not content with our home. A new couch would be nice, a new area rug would look pretty, and because we got a new couch new pillows and a new throw are a must. And then the latest HGTV magazine comes out and the new must haves for your home are spread throughout the pages and I look at our home and my mind starts racing, AGAIN.

There is nothing wrong with having nice things, I believe that when you can, you should treat yourself to nice things, but the question is, who are the nice things for? Are they because you want them or because you want them so OTHERS see you have them? I am sitting on our couch as I write this. A couch that my in-laws GAVE us. A couch that we did not have to pay for. A couch that would have cost us hundreds of dollars. Hundreds of dollars that we did not have to spend when we first started out. This couch has been the place that we fall on when we get home from a long work day, where we cuddle when we watch Netflix, where we eat breakfast and watch morning TV, where we are lazy with our dog on rainy days. This couch despite its age, is in AMAZING shape. Yet, there are days that I want DIFFERENT, I want the latest trend in couches. I see my friends couch and I WANT! My dream couch is a white slipcover sectional. It looks beautiful, especially against a grey wall with white molding and dark wood floors (sorry just dreaming here) I can imagine it now, my friends coming over for drinks and admiring our beautiful couch with the fur throw hanging over the back of it saying they love the way I decorated our home, and then I yell, “NO DON’T SIT ON THE WHITE COUCH WITH YOUR GLASS OF RED WINE! YOU WANT TO EAT CHIPS AND SALSA ON THE COUCH? ARE YOU CRAZY?! “ Then when we have little babies running around that means sticky little fingers and food covered mouths and crayons, lots of crayons and creative minds with a big white canvas in arms reach! And what about our little fur baby, Rango? I refuse to have paw prints on a white couch. So I have finally come to the realization that although a white couch would look beautiful, although my friends would think it looked great, we would not be able to do what we normally do on our current couch on a white couch. Yes it’s a slip cover and can be washed, but how often am I really going to want to take it off and wash it and not sit on it for 24 hours?

            My husband recently received a large photo of himself from his football days. It’s a pretty decent size photo! In the photo he is running out of the tunnel at one of his home games from his last season at Liberty. It’s a really awesome photo, and it brought back so many memories for me. We met at Liberty. I cheered my husband on in the stands for 3 years of our relationship while he was on the field doing something he loved. Our relationship grew deeply at Liberty, and I remembered all of those special moments we had there just by looking at that photo, but once those thoughts faded my next thought was, “where the heck am I going to put a picture like this?” It doesn’t “match” our décor. Our guests are going to look at it and think our home looks weird. They won’t appreciate it. They won’t understand it. One, I’m pretty sure my friends could careless, and two even if they did think it was weird/out of place why should I care?! That photo means so much to us. Since my husband was a little boy football has been a huge part of his life. He got a scholarship because of football which ended up in him being able to get not only a Bachelor’s but also a Master’s for free. He touched many lives through his platform playing football. That photo reminded us both of a wonderful time in our life and our relationship that was truly special. So why wouldn’t I hang it in a place that we will see it all the time? It may not match our décor, it may not be what is in “style”, it may not be appealing to our guests, but it is US.

            My husband and I love candy! I always look forward to when we have our movie dates because we make a pit stop to the dollar tree and get our sour gummy worms and gummy bears. We would totally eat them everyday if it wasn’t bad for us hehe. So when I saw this vintage gumball machine at an antique store you better believe that I bought it! I filled it with a bunch of gumballs….and then we ate all the gumballs. It isn’t something you would see grace the cover of Southern Living or HGTV magazine, but it fits perfectly in the Vinson household.

          

  I did all of that babbling to get to this point, DON’T FORGET YOU LIVE THERE. Don’t forget it is YOUR home. When all of your guests leave and it is just you and your family (which it is 95% of the time) you want to be able to relax. You want to be able to eat chips and salsa on the couch and drink a glass of red wine without caring if you spill a little while you sit back and look at your husband’s football photo hanging along with a picture of a bull skull, and reminisce about college days. You want to be able to cuddle up with your dog under a blanket that he most like chewed a hole through but it made no sense to run and spend money on a new one just because friends were coming over for dinner and you didn’t want them to notice the imperfection (because he would chew a hole through the new one too). If you can afford to buy high-end furniture and you enjoy your home looking like the cover of a magazine that is great (seriously, everyone is different), maybe I am just speaking to myself here. But I have come to realize, that when we live in our means/according to our budget and decorate with things we love and hold dear; whether they clash or not, whether they are in style or not; that is when our home looks the best, that is when our home looks magazine worthy! So if you are looking to decorate your home, don’t just buy things because you know they are popular. Don’t pay extra for something just because you want your friend to be impressed. Décor trends fade. Buy décor that you love, buy things that describe who you and your family are! That type of décor will be timeless!

happy decorating