Second best thing to a new sofa…

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Well, I’ve been wanting a new sofa, because the cushions are all shot on this one. But that’s not in the cards any time soon, so I did the next best thing… took the old white slip cover that originally came with the sofa, and dyed it bright, tropical blue!

So I picked up about 6 packs of Rit dye (in Teal)… is there an organic alternative to Rit? Probably. But I had visions of steeping onion peels and beet juice and to be honest, I’ve tried that on Easter Eggs and it just never came out to be a very bright color. And I really wanted bright blue… the feel of the beach… and I figure it is eco-friendly in it’s own way, because whenever you make do with what you have it is a whole lot better on the planet then disposing of something and buying a new one. I recycled my old slipcover and re-used my old sofa and viola!

Here is the sofa with it’s old green slipcover on… looking at this picture makes me miss it:

 

Okay, so I look at the pack of Rit dye, and I look at the volume of slipcovers I have, and I quickly decided I’m not dying each slipcover in my washing machine separately. For one thing, I didn’t want each slip cover to be a different shade of blue. For another, that seems like a hell of a lot of work, and I love finding shortcuts.

 

So I found my kids inflatable pool and figured that would do the trick. Step two… fill with hot water. What?!?! Um, no. I’m not heating up gallons and gallons of water and carrying it out there… that can’t be eco-friendly, can it? Cold water it is. I took my garden hose and filled that baby right on up.
Step three, presoak fabrics. Skip that. Tossing in all 6 bottles of dye and swirling it around the hose water was good enough for me… in goes the slipcovers, and just barely.

 

 
Step 4, continuously stir fabric in the dye. Ummm… I’ll give you a guess how long that lasted. Yep, one minute. Then I went inside to make lunch, check on the kids, eat lunch, and clean it up. After all that, I just hosed off the slipcovers and carted them inside one at a time to wash and dry. On they go, and here is the result… please excuse the rug that desperately needs a vacuum…

 

 

Too bright, I know. I was surprised. I’m glad I only used cold water! But I was very pleased with how even it turned out… I figured they would look really horrible and tie-dyed, but it is actually pretty evenly colored so I’m happy enough.

Truth be told, none of us really like this slip cover. The fabric is rough (sort of like denim) and the color is too bright. I miss the soothing green slipcover… but I’m washing that one and storing it away for fall. We needed a warm weather change in that room and at only $6 per bottle of Rit, this one fit the bill.

So you’ve seen the backyard which is our garden that I featured on Mon… you saw the inside of our house… and here is the spring celebration going on in the front yard… the classic: water balloons! Have you made any water balloons yet this spring? xoxo