When Beyoncé Gives us Lemonade We Make a Crop Top
As a member of the Beyhive there was no doubt in my mind that my last Saturday night (and rest of this week) was going to be devoted to hours and hours to watching, re-watching, listening and re-listening to Beyoncé’s new album, “Lemonade.” I’ll be honest — at first I was angry. Bey! A whole album about how Jay Z cheated on you?! Stop spending your time singing about it and get away from that dirt bag! But then after I finished watching and absorbed it all in, I realized that Beyoncé is a mastermind and, of course, “Lemonade” is soooo much more than Jay Z’s infidelity.
Within 13 songs Beyoncé brought us through the stages of love and life while giving us a history lesson, love lesson and lesson in family life. “Lemonade” isn’t about just Beyoncé’s relationship and the betrayal that came along with it, it’s about every woman’s relationships, family curses. It’s about the love and passion that women harness that can make us seem “crazy” but overall, extremely powerful. Now don’t think this is something new for Bey, because she has told us this before *ahem “Girl” and then later on in “Run the World,” but now we have a whole hour long visual album to remind us that we need to stick together and help guide our world into a better direction.
Beyoncé shares with us the story of her grandmother and her metaphor for turning good out of the bad by making lemonade with lemons. We were inspired to create our own homage to Bey’s grandma with a DIY lemon stamped tank to celebrate women everywhere and the struggles that we go through on the daily.
Materials:
– lemons
– liquid fabric dye
– powdered fabric dye
– white cotton tank
Instructions:
1. Slice your lemon in half.
2. Mix your liquid dye and powdered dye in a dish to get the color of your desire.
3. Slide a piece of cardboard or plastic in-between the layers of your shirt so the dye doesn’t bleed through.
4. Stamp lemon half into liquid dye, blot on a paper towel and then stamp onto your garment.
5. Repeat the stamping process till your garment is covered in lemons :)
Slice your lemon in half — try keeping your cut completely perpendicular so you have a smooth stamping surface.
We played around with a lot of stamping techniques and found mixing liquid dye with powdered dye gave the best results. The liquid coats the lemon and the powdered dye mixes with the lemon juices to give a great texture when you stamp onto your cotton surface. We mixed these three colors together to get a fun citrusy color, but you do not need to use all three :)
Insert a piece of cardboard or plastic in-between the layers of your shirt so your dye doesn’t bleed through.
Stamp your lemon into the dye and then directly onto a paper towel. This will remove the first layer of dye that results in a big blob. Next stamp your lightly coated lemon onto your cotton garment.
Repeat this process until your garment is covered in citrusy goodness :)
Bey, you are a true inspiration that almost brings me to tears on the daily. #truelove
“I’ma keep running. Cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.” – Beyoncé
“What’s worse, lookin’ jealous or crazy? Jealous or crazy? Or like being walked all over lately, walked all over lately — I’d rather be crazy.” – Beyoncé #PreachBey
“She don’t gotta give it up ‘cuz she professional.” – Beyoncé
