DIY Color Run Gear

Okay, since I failed to post Tuesday and Thursday, I have a twofer DIY post for you today. This Saturday (tomorrow!) I have the opportunity to participate in the Color Run 5k with a fabulous group of people. In preparation for the run, this post is entirely about the gear including DIY team Tutus for the girls, my all white outfit, and some splatter nails.

DIY Tutus

Pre-Project:

•  Remember that to run the Color Run, you have to be dressed in primarily white clothes
• Take into consideration what you can run in (it's easier to run in shorts than it is in, say, a evening gown)
• If you're running with a team, is there a way you can incorporate your team name/ theme into your outfit. Ours is Team Gryffindor so we wanted to try to work in the red and yellow.

Supplies:

• 2 old tutus or lots of tulle
• scissors
• enough elastic to fit your waist
• safety pins

1. Taking the elastic, stretch around your waist to fit comfortably and cut, with a little extra at the end (just in case).

2. Taking your old tutus, if there are multiple layers, separate the layers but simply cutting them apart at where they connect. If not, proceed to next step.

3. If using old tutus, cut strips of the fabric into awkward looking triangles; if using tulle fabric, cut into long rectanlges.

4. Take your elastic band, and connect it together with your safety pin (or two) to make your waist band

5. Finally, tie on your individual pieces of old tutu/ tulle by folding in half and making a loop on top of the elastic. fold your fabric tail behind the elastic, up through your loop, and down to tighten onto elastic.

Make it as sparse or as full as you want it, in any order that you want it. One of my team mates, Jane, made an awesome one that is 3/4 white around then 1/4 red. My other teammate, Bryanna, had a pattern to her two colors that made it look pretty sweet too. Me? I'd like to say I had a system to it all but really, it was totally random.

We had lots left over of both elastic and old tutu. In fact, there was just enough of a left over piece of elastic and cut old tutu for a certain cross dressing bunny.

No animals were harmed in the making of these tutus As you can see, the elastic band is just resting on his back, its not actually tied around him.

And there you have your personalized Color Run tutu.

All white gear

The idea of the color run is that your completely clean clothes at the start of the race are completely covered in color by the end. That means that whatever you wear, prepare for it to be stained for the rest of its existence. With that in mind, I needed to find myself some white shorts and my boyfriend a full outfit of whiteness. Goodwill! Unfortunately, the cheapest pair of shorts we found were $10 and we were hoping for all our gear to be no more than that. Then we had the idea of transforming a bed sheet into whatever we needed. We found exactly what we needed!

A lovely looking bed skirt for $6.99

I will be posting the entire "DIY shorts" tutorial on Tuesday morning. Just know that out of a $6.99 sheet I not only made 2 pairs of shorts (1 for the run and 1 for pjs) and Jeremiah's toga, but there was plenty of fabric left over. I'm thinking that the skirt part of it would make a really cute skirt and, possibly, a fancy shirt.

The rest of my outfit is comprised of two old tank tops (a white one layered on top of a bright blue one), white socks with a yellow ring around the ankle, old shoes (I bought them at Goodwill a year ago for $5 for the Warrior Dash, which is why they're so dirty), sunglasses (to protect my eyes from the paint/ cornstarch), and an old white bandana to wear over my mouth and nose (I'd rather not inhale paint).


Splatter nails

Pre-project:

• Is there a color scheme for whatever you're decorating your nails for (For color run, the colors are blue, red, orange, and yellow)
• Make sure you have plenty of time to allow your nails to dry between coats
• Unless you are highly skilled at painting with both hands (I'm not), I suggest completing one hand, let it dry, then start on the other one to avoid any mishaps.

Supplies

• Base nail color (white)
• splatter nail colors (blue, red, orange, and yellow)
• paper or other item to lay down to catch mis-fired splatter
• 1 coffee straw per splatter color (or 1 cut into however many colors you have to splatter)
• nail polish remover
• Q-tips

Instructions:

1. Make sure your nails are nice and clean, cuticles pushed back, maybe give yourself a nice hand massage.

2. Paint your base coat and allow to dry for 30minutes-1hour

3. There are two ways to do this next part: The first is by placing a small puddle of your splatter color on your paper and dipping the straw in it.

After trying this with my first color I realized that I was wasting a lot of the nail polish. I found that a better way to do this is to paint the end of the straw, instead, with approximately half a drop of polish.

4. Putting the straw in your mouth, 1-2inches above your nail, give a quick blow to spray the paint onto your nail. It took me a few tries to figure it out but once I did, I loved it! Something I didn't do for this trial run but I will do for the actual race is splatter the colors in a different order on each nail. That is, by the end, my first color (blue) was almost completely hidden. Caution: inhale before putting your mouth on the straw. Nail polish does not taste good.

5. Repeat for each nail and color until desired look is achieved.

6. Now obviously this is pretty messy looking so, with your Q-tip and polish remover, remove any polish that isn't on your nails. Some people avoid this issue by taping around their fingers and then using Q-tips to clean up the rest but I thought that would end up being a waste of tape.

I find the easiest way of doing this is filling the cap with the remover

Not all that clean but this was just the test run

 And there you have it - Splatter nails!

I'm finishing up this entry at our overnight accomadations before the run tomorrow. We've already checked in, picked up our packets, and I've started in on fixing up my nails for tomorrow so all that's left is the anxious jitters before the race.

Oh man, I can't wait! Before and after pictures to follow upon my return from the race so tune back in for that. Until then, dear readers, live long and prosper!