IN MY LIFE

» A few Etsy treasuries featuring shopHollyDolly: one, two, and three. 

» Currently coveting: these comfy pants from Ruche!

» You’ve all seen that viral video of the cat saving a little boy from a dog attack, right?! Well, you should watch it. What a brave little kitty!

» I am featured this week in Blog Better Boston’s {hub}LINKS! The theme this week was ‘spring colors’. Check out all the bloggers featured below!

• Around the World “L” shows us some colorful architecture you won’t want to miss.
• Holly Dolly DIYed and dyed a dress and looks fabulous, of course.
• Everyday Starlet gives advice on finding your best colors for fashion, hair and makeup…in video form.
• Nick Burka On The Music shares a playlist inspired by spring colors.
• Cuppajyo models a colorful spring look from local boutique Ku De Ta.

» Are you on Instagram? Follow along! My username is : hollyjollydolly

BLOSSOM AND MAXI

What a glorious, sunny, 80 degree day this was. *Sigh* if only it stayed that way. 

In other news, I absolutely LOVE the cut of this dress. 

dress: LOFT

sunglasses: Warby Parker

purse: H&M

belt: Target

sandals: Forever21

LOVE 'EM OR HATE 'EM

I know everyone is pretty strongly opinionated when it comes to the overalls trend. You either love em, or you hate em. And gosh darnnit, I LOVE EM. Seriously, I will buy all the overalls. 

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overalls: H&M

tee: I don’t even know anymore. its old. 

sunglasses: Warby Parker

tote: Crompton Collective

scarf: thrifted

pumps: Shoemint

SOFT KITTY, WARM KITTY

Meow. 

And If you know what the title of the post is referring to, we can be best friends. Big Bang Theory is currently one of our favorite shows! Of course, Boo and I have discussed which character we are (as you usually do with your favorite tv shows and movies, right?!). Anyway, It only took us about a whole two seconds to determine that I’m most definitely a Raj. Most definitely. 

dress: handmade // Megan Nielsen Darling Ranges pattern

cardigan: C&C California

sunglasses: Warby Parker

purse: Sarah Oliver Handbags // SoWa market

boots: Shoemint

IN MY LIFE

» You know what? Being sick this time of year is the worst. It’s so gorgeous outside, and its taking everything in me just to get up off the couch. And make it through work without falling over. Blargh. 

» I should start a new feature called “things I bought from work last week”: these shorts and this romper (although technically I got the romper online. It’s an exclusive). 

» Recent Etsy treasuries featuring shopHollyDolly: one, two, three, four. 

» Just picked up my 3rd pair of Warby Parker frames this week. I went with cherry red! Although these were a close second. I’m thinking about doing a post all about my frames collection soon. 

» Interested in working together? Check out my sponsorship page!

» I love Emma Stone. And I love Jimmy Fallon. I especially love his lip-sync battles. This one was the best one ever. 

» Speaking of Emma Stone, hers was by far my favorite look from the Met Ball. What was your favorite?

» Don’t forget, you can use the promo code holly for $20 off your shoe order at NaughtyMonkey.com! 

» Are you on Instagram? Follow along! My username is : hollyjollydolly

ROSE GOLD

Eek - breaking out my first pair of sandals for the year! These gold beauties from Naughty Monkey have me really excited to let my toes finally breathe. Although, I’m now really aware of how badly I need a pedicure. Yikes. 

P.S - use the promo code holly for $20 off your shoe order a NaughtyMokey.com!

vest: Old Navy

tee: ASOS

sunglasses: Warby Parker

necklace: c/o UnCommon Goods

skirt: H&M

sandals: c/o Naughty Monkey

POLKA DOTS, BOW TIES, AND GIRAFFES - OH MY!

We take a trip to the zoo around this time every year (usually around my birthday), and this year we had a gorgeous day for it! and you guys, there was a one month old baby giraffe. named Max. One month old. Can you just picture the cuteness?!

shirt: Urban Outfitters

bow tie: ASOS

sunglasses: Warby Parker

jeans: Old Navy

flats: Blowfish Shoes

SHIBORI, DARLING

Here it is! My first project with my DIY-ed shibori fabric. I’ve been dreaming up a knit/woven combo Darling Ranges dress for a long time, but just needed the right fabric. I did make a few mistakes, and ended up having to add some green binding to the armholes after cutting them too much (grrrr), but, overall, I am soooooo happy with the way it turned out! Just what I’ve been picturing :)

dress: handmade // Megan Nielsen’s Darling Ranges pattern

necklace: gift

glasses: Warby Parker

shoes: c/o Swedish Hasbeens

DIY SHIBORI DYEING

In college, I took a fabric arts class where we did a lot of dyeing, stamping, and painting techniques. That is where I did my first Shibori dyeing, and absolutely loved the results. I’ve been dying (pun intended) to try it again ever since (um, 6 years?!). 

So, if you don’t know, Shibori is a Japanese form of resistance dyeing. It involves folding, wrapping, binding, twisting, stitching…. anything to provide resistance to create patterns with the dye. There are soooooo many different methods, and different looks you can create, but I decided to show you the 3 most common ones. Read on below to see how you can do it!

supplies:

-fabric dye (liquid or powder)

-fabric

-bins or buckets

-plastic

-rubber gloves

-string or rubber bands

- 2 long planks of wood

-dowel or pvc pipe

-rocks

METHOD 1

accordion fold your fabric. Place between your two long pieces of wood and hold in place with rubber bands or string. Make sure they’re reeeeeally tight. The rubber bands / string act as resistance for the dye, so how many you use will give different design results in the end. It’s up to you!

METHOD 2

Method two is a pole wrapping technique. PVC piping is probably the easiest tool to use, but you could use and cylindrical object.

Wrap your fabric (you can do it vertically or diagonally) around the pole and hold it nice and tight. Tie a a piece of string around the top, and continue to tightly wrap down the fabric and pole. When you reach the end, knot it off. Now push and scrunch the fabric up towards the top as much as you can. Again, the tighter the compression, the better. 

METHOD 3

The last method involves binding objects. The most common object used is rocks, but you can use large beads, marbles, etc.  

Place each object under the fabric and bind tightly with string or rubber bands. Place each rock as close or as far apart as you’d like. Do it in one section, or cover your entire piece of fabric, like I did!

Place plastic down everywhere you are going to be dyeing. This is very important! Cover more than you think you need to, just to be safe. You don’t want to accidentally stain anything :|. And wear rubber gloves when handling the dye!

Prepare your dye in your bins or buckets according to the provided directions. You can add salt for cotton fabrics, or vinegar for silks, wools, or nylon. Immerse your fabric pieces in warm water first, and then place in your dye baths. Now, you can keep your fabric in the dye for as long as you would like, depending of the color / effect you are going for. For example, I left all three of mine in for about 7-10 minutes each. It ended up being perfect for the rock bound fabric, since I was going for more of a pink color than a deep red. But I wish I would’ve left my pole-wrapped fabric in for longer, since the majority turned out pretty light.

When it is time to remove your fabric from the dye, rinse in cold water. Remove your twine/rubber bands and rocks, etc. and continue to rinse until the water runs clear. Afterwards, make sure to wash (by hand or machine) in warm water with a little detergent, too, to eliminate all color running. let dry. 

Ta-daaaaaa, you finished your shibori!

Check back tomorrow to see what I made with my first of three new fabrics. It’s pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. 

#GETCRAFTYBOSTON // MICHAELS NEW LOOK

You all know I love a good crafty DIY, right? I’m a maker. And I actually spend a lot of time at Michaels getting supplies. So I was so excited to be invited to join a group of Boston bloggers yesterday for a night of snacking, crafting, and touring the new look at Michaels in Saugus! We made Italian sodas, and then crafted (and laughed our way through) our own Boston skyline canvas art. I say laughed, because I totally botched mine. And Amy had to help me salvage it. Oy. P.S - you can actually reserve the Michaels craft room/event space for free. 

But really, the real reason we were there was to get the inside scoop on the store’s new look. If you live in the Boston area, 27 Michaels locations are unveiling the same exact new look. So no matter what store you go in, you’ll know exactly where everything is! The aisles are now wider, the layouts make more sense, everything is brighter and more colorful, and signs are more visible - making things much easier to find. Plus, they’ve expanded their home decor section, which I really liked! So many cute coastal designs :).

Oh, and you know what else I learned? You can now shop online! Long overdue, in my opinion. But I’m so excited about it. 

The 27 Boston area Michaels stores will be revealing this new look with a grand re-opening, ribbon cutting event this Sunday, May 4th at 9:45 am. So if you like to get crafty, you should head on over to your local store! They are giving away over $1000 in gift cards at each store. Be excited!

#getcraftyboston :)