Sonya Nimri

These past few months I've had so much fun working for ilovetocreate's Tie Die Your Summer campaign .  Up and down the coast of California I went where I was called, an apron on and squirt dyes in hand.  Working the tie dye booth for iltc, I calculated that I assisted the dying of 2000 tie dye shirts (certificate please).  And since I had such unfettered access to dye, I kept going!  I dyed everything-clothes, duvets, pillows, and even threw my best friend a baby shower where everyone dyed a onsies for her little one.  This post is all the projects that didn't get posted over the summer.  They kinda just fell off my plate of things to do but here they are, a little dyeing inspiration for all my crafty friends out there.  Get a kit and go for it! A Cynthia Vincent ruffled top. Tied and dyed Yay!  I'm going to wear it like this for a bit, then it might become a deep blue/black next. A BCBG hippie top My good friend and...

I recently finished a series of nine projects for the informative eHow.com site.  This  Beaded Curtain  is one of my faves.  It has a high-end design-y African feel that took me by surprise.  The genius of bead projects is that they can be taken apart and made into something else so easily.  It doesn't damage the beads at all for them to be repurposed into something new so they are totally "borrowable" (I scored these from my friend, jewelry designer of Sid Vintage ).  And, as you can see from the below, even the most overlooked of beads, when joined together, can come together to create the most unforgettable of projects.   Check out the how-to here . The wooden and plastic beads I used. Finished curtain Side view While I was working on the curtain, I let my kids have a piece of fishing wire and use the beads. My 5 year olds necklace. My 2 year olds necklace. Both on me ;)  Happy Monday!

This week I had the good fortune of being interviewed by Cut Out and Keep , the incredibly clever brainchild of Cat Morley.  Interviews always stump me a bit, I don't like talking about myself so much, rather, doing projects is more my scene but here it is in case anyone's interested in hearing about my fashion sense here it is .  There is also a project I contributed as part of my interview.  For that DIY click here . Scarf Project for Cut Out and Keep Swinging with my scarf.

This is an angora hair sweater I scored at the good ol' $.99 store.  I removed some crazy-giant shoulder pads that gave away the 80s of it all.  It needed a little something to jazz up the plain milky whiteness of it all, so I decided to dip it in a little wash of color to see what would happen. 1.  Wet the fabric you plan to dye with cold water.  I used Tulip One Step Dyes in orange for this project. Squeezing the fabric helps to really saturate the dye into the fibers. Make sure not to get dye on the rest of the sweater by leaving it outside the bucket. Hang on a tree to dry, making sure not to let the dye touch the rest of the sweater. Voila!

I needed to darken this bikini because it goes transparent when wet and white and I obviously couldn't go to the beach in a transparent bikini(okay, I could , but why give them the satisfaction?! I just want to swim!). So, what to do?  I got it: Ice Dyeing is a totally awesome way to transform something completely, with the added bonus that you never know exactly what you're going to get. Here are some really beautiful outcomes for this totally accessible form of dyeing:  navy, and a couple different purples.  Color's up to you but as for process you couldn't get any easier... First I tied it up so certain parts wouldn't take the dye. Put it in a bucket.  Good luck down there. Covered with ice, then squirted it directly with the dye powder.  If you are going to do this, I would recommend a respirator, I'm pretty sure inhaling the straight powder is pretty toxic. I mixed Rit dye and Tulip One Step Dyes . Notice the white hal...

If there's one thing that screams "classy" in modern-day fashion, it's the cut-off jean. I'm pretty sure Marie Antoinette died in one of these, just to prove a point, and that high couture long followed her lead in producing their own versions of cut-offs and jumpers every season since. No? Okay, fact is, even the most style-savvy among us who managed to emerge from the early 90s intact probably modeled a rather embarrassing swath of denim at one point or another in their teens. Jean rompers aren't everyones "thing".  And I get it, this one is especially trashy.  But here's a simple way to update a classically dated 90s romper that so many of us have hiding out in the closet, in need of a serious makeover before showing their face in the sunlight again .  There are great tutorials on Galaxy Dying online.  Mine is a little different because I'm starting out with jean as a base.  I dyed it darker blue to add a little more depth then lightened...