DIY NATURAL DYES with FREE PEOPLE

I've been a fan of Free People for ages, mainly because of their perfectly bohemian aesthetic and super cool warehouse headquarters (thanks instagram for reminding me daily of where I DON'T work). I always tune in for their WednesDIY on the Free People blog, so when they asked me recently if I wanted to guest post for today's DIY I couldn't say no - check out the DIY Fishtail Skirt I made for them.

We also thought it would be lovely to feature one of their DIYs here.  Free People blogger Julia (um, best job ever?) did this amazing natural dyes project which I knew you would love. 

I have always wanted to experiment with natural dyes and on a gloomy day in September I decided that it was time. This is such a fun, environmentally friendly project that takes a little bit of time, but very little cash.

There are a number of plants that can be used to make natural dyes, but for my first go-round I chose to use fruits and vegetables that I picked up at a local market.

What I got: red cabbage, lemons, oranges, beets, yellow onions, blackberries, blueberries, spinach.

*It’s important to remember when working with natural dyes that experimentation is key – depending on the amount of ingredients you use and how long you leave a garment in the dye, the color you get can vary.

For pinkish/red dyes:

Beets and blueberries can make a really lovely dusty rose color.

For bluish/purple dyes:

Blackberries and red cabbage can be used to make bluish/purple dyes.  

  

For copper/orange dyes:

I never realized what a beautiful color yellow onions can have! Their skins can make an alluring mustard yellow, coppery color.

For yellow dyes:

Orange and lemon peels can be used to make a soft pale yellow dye. 

For green dyes:

Finally, spinach can be used to make a beautiful shade of green. 

 

Now what?

To make the dye, chop up your ingredients and put them in a pot with twice as much water as ingredients.  Bring the water to a boil and let simmer for an hour.  For deeper colors, you can leave the ingredients in the water (without heat) overnight.

Remove the hard materials from the mixture with a strainer, leaving you with the liquid dye.

The beets were such a beautiful deep red color! I chopped them up and added water and when I started boiling the water turned red almost immediately.

  

For the onions, I peeled off the skins and used only that part – I have seen other examples of this online that yielded really nice results but I was actually doubtful that this would really work.  Turns out I was pleasantly surprised!

I had high hopes for the spinach… if anyone has tried this with spinach and gotten good results let me know what your secret is :)

After bringing each ingredient to a boil, I let them simmer for an hour while I prepared the fabrics to dye.

Before dying, you will also need to create a fixative, which will help your fabric hold the dye.

When working with berries, use a salt fixative – put 1/2 cup of salt in 8 cups of water, put the fabric in and simmer for one hour.

When working with vegetables, use a vinegar fixative – mix one part vinegar and four parts water, add your fabric and simmer for one hour.

When you remove the fabric, rinse in cold water.

The fabric is now ready to dye! 

I put the fabric in the dye and let it sit for a little while – the longer you let it sit, the deeper your shade of color will be. I removed the fabric when I felt like it had reached a nice shade of reddish pink – such a pretty color:

  

I was happiest with the color I got from the onion skins – a beautiful amber that worked so well on the fabric.

  

Wouldn’t it be cool to make friendship bracelets using naturally-dyed string?!

By the next day, the fabric dyed with the beets faded into more of a light pink color, but it was still really pretty! I think next time, though, I would leave the fabric in the dye for longer.  The fabric dyed with onion skins actually held out really well, and I LOVE the color it created. I loved it so much, I tried it out on one of my Free People bras :)

Make sure you have a look around the Free People blog - they have loads of amazing DIYs.

IN MY HANDBAG

The Chronicles of Her recently quizzed me on life, future DIY projects and all manner of other things, so make sure you pop over to check out the interview and pics - which include a yet to be published DIY project (!). Check out the post here. 

As part of the collaboration, Carmen asked me to take a picture of what's in my handbag. Never one to say no to turning my tote upside down and letting all the random coins, sand and hair ties fall out, here's my stash.

+ Iphone with hello kitty phone case. My love of hello kitty started off as a joke but is now becoming an embarrassing reality.

+ Needle and thread - because you never know when you'll get a chance to do a sneaky DIY. Sometimes I also carry a current DIY (beading etc) to do while I'm on the train or in a cab.

+ Bobby pins - not just two, millions in fact.

+ Business cards and black business card holder - in HK if you don't have a stash of business cards to hand out at any given moment you may as well be invisible.

+ Kiehl's ultra facial moisturiser - 'nuf said.

+ Vintage style notebook - I jot notes like a mad woman.

+ My favourite sunglasses (usually at least 1 pair but sometimes up to 3).

+ Kiehl's fragrance free lip balm - At the risk of sounding like Kiehl's paid for his post (honestly they didn't), I think I finally may have found an accessible alternative to Lucas' Paw Paw Ointment. Although I usually carry both just in case...

+ Kindle - this has seriously changed my life. You don't have to carry heavy books with you and always have access to new books. If you love reading you have to get one.

+ One thing I forgot to include in the pics is my MAC bright red lipstick, which is always in my handbag. Perfect for bringing sparkle to a basic outfit when you feel you need it.

What's in your handbag?

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ASOS TEA PARTY VIDEO

A little bit more Asos Tea Party action for you. A big thank you to Nathan Wong and friends for this lovely video, everyone looks amazing and I love how we all chose completely different outfits reflecting our personal take on the Autumn/Winter trends. The Asos accessories are to die for, and I'm lusting over Tania's cuffs and Denise's rings.

REMEMBER TO HEAD OVER TO THE ASOS VOTING PAGE TO PICK YOUR FAVOURITE BLOGGER LOOK - ONE VOTER WILL WIN £250 TO SPEND AT ASOS. 

ASOS BLOGGERS TEA PARTY | Win a £250 Asos Voucher

Since moving to HK I've been to more high teas than I can count on both hands, and they're always a delicious mix of the quintessentially British (scones, carrot cake and cucumber sandwiches) and oriental deliciousness (egg tarts, pork bbq buns and green tea). I recently had the pleasure of being invited to a particularly lovely afternoon tea with a few of my favourite Hong Kong bloggers, where we got to style our most coveted Autumn/Winter Asos pieces.  It was a perfect afternoon with mountains of mouthwatering food, and we were fortunate to have the talented Carmen Chan (half of How I Met Your Style) on hand to take some pics of the festivities.

The challenge was to style an Autumn/Winter outfit for under £100. For my outfit I chose a plain grey marl sweatshirt which I (naturally) embellished with lace a la Jason Wu, a burgundy suede (very mini) skirt and a pair of ankle boots, all Asos of course! I also made a wool pompom headband to top it off.

OK so here's the best bit. Asos have set up a page on their website for you to choose your favourite outfit out of the 6 bloggers that were there - with one lucky voter winning a £250 Asos voucher! The blogger with the winning look also gets a £250 voucher, so head over and vote here.

I'll be posting the tutorials for the lace embellished sweatshirt and pom pom headband (as well as info on where you can buy a handmade tulle pompom headband of your own) over the next couple of days so stay tuned.

Wearing:

Asos Grey Marl Sweatshirt with DIY Lace Embellishments

 Asos Burgundy Micro Mini Skirt

 Asos Aggie Boots

DIY Pom Pom Headband

A big thank you to the gorgeous bloggers who made it such a fun day, including Sam of Sam is Home, Tania of T Like Bubble Tea, Sybil of The Style Voyager, Christing of Fashion Hedonism and Denise of Superwowomg. A few of the girls worked particularly hard with Asos to make it all happen so a huge thanks to you guys. The food and styling was impeccable - these girls should be paid to style events like this!

Remember to VOTE for your favourite look to win a £250 Asos voucher!

Thanks to Cafe Loisl and VERO for many of the delicious cakes. Photos courtesy of Carmen Chan and Sam.

J BRAND COLLABORATION - JASON WU INSPIRED DENIM

Recently I had the pleasure of collaborating with J Brand Jeans on a AW11 Runway Inspired DIY. I chose to embellish some jeans with lace - a la Jason Wu RTW. Was such a fun project! Thanks to J Brand for arranging it - head over to their blog to check out my post and lots of other fun bits and bobs.

Lace has been popping up everywhere for the coming fall/winter season, and I couldn’t help but drool over the scalloped lace embellished dresses, sweatshirts and jackets that came down the runway as part of Jason Wu’s amazing AW11 RTW collection. What better way to get a bit of lace in your life than by doing it yourself? Never one to shy away from a challenge, I got to work adding some gorgeous black scalloped lace to my favorite J Brand style in an amazing bright lime green. Lace + chartreuse = two of my favorite AW11 trends wrapped up in one fun little DIY package!

To do this DIY you’ll need:

A pair of jeans (go for a bright color like green, orange or red)
Around 3m of black lace, scalloped along one edge. Try to pick lace with some stretch.
A needle and some black thread.
(& some re-runs of Sex and the City to watch while you do the project!)

1. Measure out enough lace to run down both sides of jeans.
2. Cut the lace to fit, leaving a little so the ends can be folded and sewed to the underside.
3. Line up the flat edge of the lace with the side seam of the jeans.
4. Pin in place.
5. Hand sew all the way around the lace, starting along the straight edge and then moving to the scalloped edge. This is when you’ll need a supply of your favorite re-runs – it took me about 2 hours to stitch the lace. Hand stitching works best because it allows a little bit of stretch for when you put the jeans on.
6. Complete both sides.

Voila! How easy is that? The scalloped lace gives a gorgeous and on-trend look, and a friend mentioned when I was wearing them that the lace was quite flattering on the legs, um, score!