Tie Dye

A classic camp activity is tie-dye. We were instructed to bring a white t-shirt but I decided to think outside the box and bring a tote bag.

My cousin is a tie-dye pro so she decided to experiment with her t-shirt and twisted it up in a circle before covering in elastic bands.

The dyes we used all had weird names. I think my bag went in 'burlesque red'.

Once everything had soaked in the dye for a couple of hours it was time for a whole lot of rinsing. 

Fun fact: Children have been bathed in that metal tub.

My cousin's t-shirt is the 5th from the left. Didn't it turn out great!

If I'd have known I could create something so awesome I would have brought a t-shirt too.

Here's my bag. I decided to keep it quite simple because I don't have much experience with tie-dye. The back is lots of smaller circles but I like this side the best.

Have you ever done tie-dye?

This Week I...

...went camping! Hence the blog silence this week.

We were pretty lucky with the weather, except that it was hella windy. But at least we didn't get much rain.

I think I was the only camper to take three pairs of welly boots with me. I need the variety so that I can colour coordinate my outfits!

This is me and my cousin with a Gruffalo which we came across on the walk.

Explorer

I just wanted to share one last thing from camp.

Every year we have a theme and this year's was 'Explorers'.

A tradition that's started over the last few years is to dress up for one dinner based on the theme.

 

So I dressed up as Internet Explorer.

I bought a plain white t-shirt from a charity shop and used printable transfer paper to put the IE logo on.

I even made a cursor necklace to complete the look. That was just a cut out piece of laminated paper which I outlined with Sharpie.

Someone else actually had the same idea but theirs was just the logo drawn on to a t-shirt.

Amateurs. 

I don't have many photos of other people's outfits - I was too busy eating! - but I've got this one of a snow explorer, complete with tennis racket shoes.

And we're a fancy camp.

Our dinner was accompanied by some live classical music.

Clay at Camp

One of the guys at camp last week had an idea to do some clay work using the soil from the field we were staying in, as it was mostly clay anyway.

He'd taken some lumps of the soil, removed big stones, and added water so it was ready for us to work with.

There were plaques, bowls, beads and models made.

This is the creepy face my cousin made.

And this is the little dish I made.

I'm thinking about coating it in PVA glue to make it more durable.

Our hands looked like we'd been using a bad fake tan by the end of it but I was really impressed with how we had an afternoon activity and produced some lovely things for no money at all.

This Week I...

...went camping!

While I'm busy washing clothes and enjoying the luxury of a flushing toilet I'll leave you with a few videos from my trip.

My cousin and I getting interrupted.

A clip from the camp fire.

And a group of us getting lost in a maize maze!

It was amazing.

What have I missed while I've been away?

Painting: Camping

The idea for this latest painting came from seeing a photo when looking through old camp photos for this post about my last painting.

The photo had a really Turner/Constable-esque sky so I thought it should be painted.

It's oil on canvas and measures 12 x 9".

Here are some of the other photos from the same time. They were taken in 1992 by my Dad.

I wasn't there because I didn't start going to Quaker camp until I was three, the next year, but that's my sister in the bottom left photo.

My Dad helpfully labelled some of the photos so we know that it was 1992 in Swanage.

A pretty good year for camping by the looks of it.

Camping style

 I'm back from a wonderful week camping so I thought I would share my style when living in the great outdoors.

Jumpers are a must. The outdoors can be chilly!

I like to dig out my old school jumper because I don't mind if it gets muddy, and it still fits so I might as well use it.

The school logo is very small; just a little yellow antelope I think.

Finding shorts to match is a bonus.

The outdoors can also be wet.

We were quite fortunate with the weather last week but we did get caught in the odd shower so having a plastic poncho stuffed in my pocket ready to go was a great idea.

I've got so many dresses now that I'm able to demote some of them to 'camp clothes'.

My criteria for camp clothes include; if was a hand-me-down, if it's damaged, if it's ill-fitting or if it's just pretty old.

This blue dress is both a hand-me-down and damaged as it has a few small holes in it.

Let me also draw your attention to my wellies. Shiny red cowboy boot wellies!! 

And while we're on the subject of footwear; I woke up to this one morning.

Ew.