Color Catchers

After wearing my black Cincinnati Reds shirt (wearing #32 with pride!) to a game, I decided I need a new tee shirt the other day - it's Cincinnati red and sports a #4.

 I decided to wash the bright shirt by itself the first time, so that all of my clothes didn't turn out a lovely Cincinnati pink.   However, I wanted to try out a Shout Color Catcher sheet that I've had on hand for a while and never found a use for.

So I threw a sheet in with my new shirt to see what would happen.  Here are the results from my little experiment.

 

As clearly indicated by the results, the sheet definitely catches color!  Despite the color the sheet soaked up, I'm not sure if I would feel comfortable throwing in a red shirt with a light load, but I thought it was neat to see how the difference in the sheets.  And it was a neat little experiment to make laundry a little more entertaining.

Paint it Purple

I started collecting cute little unique glasses at thrift stores (a truly limitless resource!) and have tons sitting around the house at this point.   When I stumbled on this idea via Sugar and Charm on Pinterest, I had just the set of glasses to try it out on!

 

Picture taken from Sugar and Charm blog.

So I headed out the craft store to get ceramic/glass appropriate paint (I ended up going with lavender) and a small foam brush.

Then I dumped a little paint in the first glass and started "painting" the inside.

I quickly realized this small bit of paint wasn't going to cut it.  A LOT of paint was needed to fully cover the entire inside of this small glass!  I ended up doing three coats of paint on each.

Then it was time to let them dry out.  I turned them upside down for a half hour or so to let any excess paint drip out.  Not much dripped out which makes me think I could have used more!

Once they dried, I was pretty excited for the final product, though they look much better on the outside than they do on the inside!  Although, I already know several things I would do differently...

Things to change next time:
1) Play with the color more by adding white and mixing "my own" color for a more unique feel.
2) Use an actual paint brush - I think the foam made it harder to work with the paint.
3) Use more paint! - I think I was afraid to use too much, but after some streaks after 3 coats, I'm not sure there is such a think as too much paint for this project!
4) Use larger glasses/vases in different shapes.

Overall, this is a really neat project.  Although the paint interior limits the uses, they will make great displays and cups for various trinkets.  I'm happy with how they turned out and ready to try it again!

Total estimated cost:  $5  
($3 for paint, $1 for all three glasses, $1 for two foam brushes)