Hair Dye Double Take

We all love a good Hair pinstrosity, right? Well my daughter and I did a little experimenting back in April. Here is our story...  

A little back story, my daughter has been friends/classmates with a wonderful little girl named Maureen since kindergarten. In March Maureen was rushed to the Children's Hospital and was diagnosed with a very rare form of Leukemia. Less than 2 weeks later she passed away from complications from an infection. The school organized a "wear blue" week in honor of Maureen leading up to her memorial.  My daughter wanted to go an extra step.

She wanted blue hair!!  

I had no idea how to do this so I turned to Pinterest.  I found a few different ways to dye hair, but I wanted a non-permanent option. I decided to try this pin: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/258042253624145081/

The blog post showed nice easy directions - I even had everything on hand!! Score a Use It Up challenge as well!!  I used a hotel sized bottle of white conditioner & a bottle of blue food coloring. I even pre cut my foil into easy to use sheets like my hairstylist uses. 

Mixing it up seemed to go okay, just like the steps on the blog. 

I put a towel over my daughters shoulders and my lap. Divided up her hair in sections so I could easily apply the mixture. I foiled each section. I thought it looked a little light, but I figured the blue would show up with her blond hair so it didn't need to be too dark.

I continued on until her whole head was foiled. Following the blog's instructions we let her sleep in them over night. I wrapped her head in a scarf and then put a knit cap over it so that nothing would fall out and possibly stain her new sheets. 

The next morning she jumped out of bed (a rare occurrence for her) and we took out the foil for the big reveal. 

Not bad!!  

 

The last step of the blog said to rinse but not to use shampoo. My daughter put her hair over the edge of the tub and I watched all the blue rinse away down the drain. OH NO!!!! It was Monday morning, less than an hour before school.  No time to run to the beauty store and buy blue dye (if they even have it) and I am about to have a very disappointed daughter when she realizes that this pin was just BUSTED!  No color remained in her hair at all!

I didn't even have that much blue food coloring left, some but not a lot.  In a hail mary pass I put the ends of her hair in the bowl and put the blue food dye directly on her hair with the help of my handy dandy sponge brush. I had no idea if this was going to work, if the dye would stain everything or be permanent. All I knew is my daughter wanted blue hair and it had to be this morning. 

To lessen the chance of having blue food coloring everywhere I went ahead and blow dried her hair.  It seemed to seal the majority of the color onto her hair.  It did have a nice effect. 

It lasted the week that she wanted it too. She was turning a little smurf-esk by the end of the week, but she didn't ruin any clothes at least.  The night of the memorial when we got home she took a bath, we all laughed at the results.

How we let nature dye our eggs

The past few years we have taken to Pinterest to find new and fun ways to dye our Easter Eggs. As a photographer I love taking the time to set up shots and document our egg dying adventures.  In 2012 the co-op that we use, Bountiful Baskets, had an egg dye kit of fruits and veggies. We decided to be adventurous, leave the Paas kit at the store and color our eggs a more natural way.

The kit came with a nice variety as well as some basic instructions. I went to Google & Pinterest to find out more info. This site gave easy instruction and a color chart: http://whatscookingamerica.net/Eggs/EasterEggDye.htm
Along with this is a pin from our good friend Martha Stewart: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/69242912990944165/
It didn't look too hard. Boil eggs, boil veggies, and then let the eggs soak in the liquid in the fridge.  We started with cabbage, strawberries, carrots, beets, broccoli, and then tea bags since I didn't have coffee in the house. 

I added enough water to each pot to just cover the fruit or veggies. Then I let them simmer on the stove until the water had a nice color.  Some didn't give off much color, like the carrots. Others gave off a color different than I expected, like the beets.

I then strained them and placed them into various cups and containers.  I added a few tablespoons of vinegar per container before adding the already boiled eggs.

Because I wanted the eggs to soak overnight, I stacked all the closed containers in the fridge and then we left for the day to go to the fair.  The next morning was Easter, so the "easter bunny" found our eggs in the fridge and hid them for the kids.

These are how our eggs turned out. I did find that the more we handled them, the more the color kind of rubbed away.  My favorite eggs are the bright blue, funny that these were the ones from the beets.
Have you tried any creative Easter Egg dye methods?

linking up to:

Golden Book Baby Shower

You know what is hard for a party planner? Having someone else plan a party for you. Handing over the reigns can be very challenging, but so rewarding.  When I was pregnant with Little B I had already thrown 2 beautiful baby showers for my best friend.  I was tickled pink that she wanted to return the favor.  Because the gender of Little B was a surprise a gender neutral shower was a little more challenging. I gave her a few links to ideas that I liked and then stepped back and was surprised when I walked in that afternoon.

I am pleased to present my Golden Books Gender Neutral Baby Shower!!


          
 

Inspiration and printed party supplies from Aesthetic Nest

A Valentine Flashback

Happy Valentine's Day!
I wanted to pop in and share that the Valentine's we made last year were featured on Pinstrosity today!  Click over to see the full post, but here is what I emailed:

We actually combined three pins and then put our own spin on it. I have always made my kids Valentine's for their classes, ever since Preschool.  When they were little I would just pick the idea and make it.  Last year my daughter got involved and helped put the spin on my Pinned V-Day ideas.  It started with these pins:

Source: pleasant-home.com via Amber on Pinterest

Source: fiskars.com via Amber on Pinterest

Source: eddaphotography.com via Amber on Pinterest

First up was the candy cane hearts. I had a HUGE tub of the mini candy canes left over from a work event in December.  I easy convinced her that they were cute and told her she could help me make them.  All was going well until I tried putting the sticks in with the white chocolate. I think the weight of the candy canes and candy was too much once you held them by the stick and the white chocolate kept breaking. Our spin #1 was to just omit the sticks. We easily assembled the remaining 30 hearts for her class and set them aside. 

In the meantime she saw me pin the pop rock valentine as an idea for her brother. She liked the idea and wanted to give out pop rocks, but we already had 30 hearts sitting on the counter. Working together we came up on the saying "You make my heart pop" so that she could give both the candy cane hearts and pop rocks.  

I decided to incorporate pin #3 and I put my photoshop to good use.  I designed a topper for the bag both treats would go in. As well as a bookmark sized insert for in the bag with the new phrase. The bag toppers are a vertical 4x6 printed photo folded in half. The front had a space for her to write her name. The back had a large red heart for her to write the classmates name. The book markers were also printed as vertical 4x6 photos and then cut in half and trimmed.  Our local Walgreen's always has a sale on 4x6 prints around Valentine's Day and I can upload and pick them up in an hour. Much easier than trying to print at home with three kids.

Our 4th Annual Boo Bash 2012

Can you believe it’s already been 4 years since our first Boo Bash!

It wasn’t intended to be annual back then. We were in the process of a remodel and it just seemed like the perfect backdrop for a Halloween party. Then the next year, what use to be our annual Harvest Festival at church was discontinued so we decided to make it an annual thing and the rest is history!

Last year’s was one of our biggest turn outs. As much fun as it was to have so many cute little goblin's running around we really needed to cut it back some or else we would need to find a new location or hire help!

Cutting back didn’t stop us from adding new games or treats though, and of course we had a great time creating them as our  62 guest did enjoying them.

New this year, Spin Art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hubby took an old box fan apart, added a board, attached some legs, made a container out of some bamboo fencing we had laying around, lined it with a black tarp, secured it with big clamps, and walla, Spin Art! Didn’t cost a dime to make.

Another favorite was the Tattoo Shop. (Temporary airbrushed tattoos, not the wet and apply kind)

           

With the growing number of toddlers, we set up an area just for them. Using our soon to be garden area, with the gazebo that got hit by a storm recently while we were building the patio below, worked perfect for a ball bounce area. Since it would cost a fortune in small balls, we used  beach balls. Added a slide and the little ones had a great time. They also had ride on toys to play with along with a bowling lane and a bean bag toss.

Of course we had our cake walk.

  

This year we actually got a picture of the great cakes our guest brought.

 

 

Usually we would have created some type of backdrop for the table, and we had all intentions of doing it, but life happened and some things just had to be what they were. I loved the little boxes we found out Target for $1 each. They looked great in the towers of lights created with a tall vases turned upside down with lights stuffed up in them. 

 

 

Also  new this year was an “Adult Only” table complete with a fresh fruit Sangria, which was a hit! Sorry, no picture of ours but here is the recipe we used.

 

 

 

              

 

Some of our new treats…

                                          

Of course some of our old favorites…

We served up our Bone Chillin` Chilli and Pulled Brain (pork) sandwiches from last years menu, along with the eyeball subs (meatballs).

 

New on the menu this year, Wormie Wienies we found here. Wanting something different then the regular ole Mummy Dogs. We didn’t  make them exactly per the directions but they still turned out great.

 

 

 

Our guest were delighted with all the new additions, along with the old, and enjoyed everything we had.

All these wonderful treats can be found on pinterest and other party blogs.

Have a safe and Happy Halloween.