New Bedroom Curtains!

It seems I've caught a sort of spring decorating bug.  First it was the living room and now it's followed me into the master bedroom and I just can't stop.  

The master bedroom also happens to be the current "Let's Room Together!" challenge so there's lots in the way of motivation to change some things up.  I spent most of my free moments last week deep cleaning our bedroom - under the bed, baseboards, dressers, mirrors, etc...  All the while looking forward to the most fun part of the challenge for me - hanging new curtains.

It's not that our current ones were bad, on the contrary, I love them.  Love them so much I've stowed them away for another change of wind (usually if I'm not going to use something decor-wise, it gets sold).  I found them on Facebook marketplace last year and paid a whopping $20 for all four panels.  They're velvet and oh-so-luxe.  (Pssst, they're these curtains* but the dark taupey color of ours don't seem to be sold anymore.)

Hand-Painted Curtains | DIY

One of the first rooms we set straight in this house was the kids' shared bedroom.  You can see the "reveal" here.  In that reveal though, I mentioned that it wasn't finished (is any room ever finished really?) and that I still wanted to add a little bit more flavor before we called it quits.  Fast forward several months to last week, I finally got around to it.  The kids are helping me with a couple more projects right now and then I'll post another (more complete) reveal, but this here is all about the existing curtains I painted.  

I bought these black-out curtains* for their room in the 96" length and they're really great, especially for the price (I got mine via the Warehouse too so they were even cheaper!), but it turns out that they're even better if you want to add a little bit of pizzazz in the form of paint.

Here's what they looked like right after we bought them last year and got them hung:

(We used curtain rods similar to these*.)

With the white walls, they were a little too boring for a kids' room but I had plans...it just took me awhile to execute.  Before I show you what they look like now, let's go into how I did it.

DIY Grommeted Curtains

Hallelujah!  I got to do something “fun” whilst getting ready for this sell-our-house thing!  I’m tired of painting the kitchen ceiling, touching up loads and loads of trim paint, cautioning the kids against touching anything (“Do NOT drag your toys along the walls pleeeeease!!!”), washing siding and trim, etc…

I got to make curtains!

If you’ve been a long-time reader, you might remember that once upon a time, I scored a long curtain rod at Dirt Cheap and flanked our living room’s french doors with some long curtains to make the room feel more “homey”, as I put it.  I started out with some sheers and then later made some tan and white, geometric-printed curtains that I loved for a long time.  Well, I wanted a change in pattern so I sold those and found some plain white, thick fabric remnants that I thought would be a perfect medium to do knock-off these curtains from West Elm with…but then I decided that I wanted the curtains to be more subtle and blend into the walls a little more so I just kept them white.  There’s still a chance they’ll look like those West Elm curtains someday but right now, I am loving them as-is.  Phew.  That all sounded like a mind-making disaster, didn’t it?  If you’re looking for someone to pick a design and stick with it, don’t look here.  The winds of change blow quite frequently in this casa. 

The parts I love the most though, are the grommets at the top.  I’ve always used rings to hang curtains because it was the easiest to just sew a big rectangle and hang it up.  But then a good friend of mine put grommets at the top of her living room curtains and told me how easy it was and I just had to.  I mean, look at how they fall!  I toyed with them a little before I took pictures but really, for the most part, the grommets create those big folds that go from top to bottom and they hold them there.

I bought these grommets at Walmart.  They’re the exact same grommets sold at the fabric stores I looked at, only without the coupon mark-up (I’m convinced stores that always have running coupons mark their items up…these are $12.99 at JoAnn Fabrics.)  You can also find them for a little bit more on Amazon.   

So, let me tell you my grommet story.  It’s so easy.  You’ve gotta make some grommeted curtains.

Three Sides

Hey Monday!  I’m not exactly happy you’re here considering you mark the end of vacation.  But, I’ll get over it with a super easy post about these curtains I made for Sebastian’s room.

I made his closet curtains out of a queen-size sheet, cut in half and hemmed.  The window curtains I made out of some white duck fabric from Hobby Lobby.  To keep things from getting too plain with all that white, I stenciled on some tiny triangles.

Here’s how I did it.

First, I made my stencil.  Using the Rhonna Designs app on my phone, I stuck a little triangle onto a white background and sized it to the size I wanted the triangles to appear on the fabric.  Then I laid some stencil plastic (leftover from stenciling this rug) over the top of my phone and traced the triangle.  I traced two because my cousin was here to help.  Hooray for company and help!
 

Then I pulled out these foam pouncers (affiliate link), originally purchased way back when I dotted these jeans, and squirted a little bit of black acrylic paint onto a plate. 
I didn’t add any fabric medium to the paint because I know it’ll still be permanent even though it might not be as soft.  On curtains, I’m not worried about the feel.  Clothing is a little different.

Next, I put a small amount of paint onto the pouncer and dabbed that paint right over my stencil.  Note:  Use enough paint to just cover the surface of your foam.  A nice thin coat dabbed a few times over the stencil will do the trick without bleeding.  Too much paint will get under the stencil and give you some crazy lines and a not-so-crisp shape.  You might have to dab the plate a few times after you get paint on the pouncer to get some of that extra paint off.

We just placed triangles in random places, scattered over the curtains.  The more imperfectly placed, the better, in this case.
 

I love the triangles vs. regular old dots because I feel like they’re a little more manly for our little man.  Sharp edges and nice straight sides…in other words, tall, dark, and handsome.  Or maybe that’s a stretch but either way, you catch my drift.  :)

Anyway…

Have a great Monday!  I’m feeling the usual ‘overwhelmed’ at all the to-do’s I really want to get done this week and the fact that we’ve been on vacation for the better part of the past week and a half is making that hefty load even heftier.  It’s okay though, usually come Tuesday, I realize that I can’t be a one-woman show and I hack my list in half.  Happens every week.  Vicious circle or sensibility shot?  Not sure…

.           .           .

So easy you might as well do it…and pin it for when you do.  :)

Sharp Corners

Yesterday afternoon.  Lazy Sunday.  The kids were asleep and Anthony was outside primping the yard when I walked into our eat-in kitchen and beheld it.  The light.  It was amazing.  Our kitchen/dining area is the brightest room in the house as it is with all the windows it boasts but at that moment the light was brighter than any light I’ve ever seen stream through the windows.  And then I found out why.  We found a big, round pool for the kids at Dirt Cheap last week and set it up Saturday.  Well, Anthony had drained it while he was outside and turned it upside down to dry.  The bottom of the pool is stark white and it was laying right by the kitchen windows, reflecting the bright sunshine into the room.  Now I know why photographers use those light reflector things.  It makes all the difference in the world.

So, I took advantage of the light and got out our camera.  The funny thing is, I had just completed a five-minute project earlier in the day that I had planned to write about today involving the window treatments in there but I didn’t plan on getting whole room shots, until I saw the light.  #literally

[No filter.  No edit.  No nothing.]

(And you can bet that I will be Anthony will be carting that pool around to the outside window of every room I photograph from this day forward.)

But anyway, let’s get to that little project quick.

Three and half years ago we went from this...


…to this…

…just by adding some diy-ed window valances.
Granted my after is even better because of the incredible lighting but you get the picture, right?  Also, might I mention that the after was taken yesterday (you probably gathered that) and I haven’t changed a single thing at this view besides adding a couple of vases?  I find that a tad comical considering my affinity for decorating interiorly.  ;)  But, adding window treatments makes a huge difference, no?

Well, if you’ve ever made those valances yourself or maybe are planning to one day, this one’s for you.

Back when we made them, Anthony ironed corner creases in them so that they’d have that slight box look.  Well, over time, the creases started to uncrease.  You can see what I’m talking about here:

No more sharp corner.
 

So, to remedy the situation and get those corners back, I simply stuck a sewing pin through the hem at the bottom corner of each valance that went right through that corner.
 
I lifted the valance up and stuck the pin in so that the point went towards the end of the valance.  I made sure I stayed within the hem so that, besides the plastic ball top, the needle wasn’t visible outside the valance.  Make sense?

Then I let the valance down, grabbed the ends of the pin from outside of the valance, and bent it at the corner.

So now my pin was bent at a 90 degree angle and holding my corner so that it’ll now stay a corner…forever…or at least until I want to switch fabrics.
 

It was an easy five-minute project.

And that’s that.

.           .           .

On another note, I’ve really been itching to replace our dining room table.  We bought it at a thrift store for $100 right before we were married and I love it, but a lighter wood, maybe a round table, and/or something I can paint are in the forecast.  I’m going to put an ad up on a local secondhand sales sight to trade with someone and see how far it gets me.  I’ll keep you updated like I do.  :)

 
[Click here to see how we reupholstered the dining chairs and here to get the deets on the frame collage.]

 
I scored those gold hex vases at a yard sale last weekend!  They’re Nate Berkus!  I know what you’re thinking!  Why on earth would anyone yard sale those?!  No clue, my friends.  But, I’m happy they did.

This room has come a long way from it’s sage + brown beginnings.  Ohhh yes it has.  See?
Before (previous owner’s decor):


Now:
  

And chances are it’ll probably look a little different the day we decide to sell.

.           .           .

P.S.  If you wondering how/why our kitchen/dining area look so clean with three toddlers running around, let me just tell you how thankful I am that the camera doesn’t pick up the goldfish crumbs littering the second chair to the right or the top of the high chair.  And speaking of the high chair and booster seat in the background, I almost moved them for these shots but then I thought I’d leave them so you get the full feel of how they’re incorporated into the design of the room.  Kidding.  They totally hamper the design but it’s ok.  That is our life.  *wink 

Trashy

That’s quite literally what our front door might’ve looked like prior to last week.  You might remember (and hopefully you don’t) that after I painted the inside of our front door, I had a trash bag on loan to be hung over the two small windows every night so creepers couldn’t creep.  The sad proof:


Why?  Well, because we used to cover it with this roman shade I made…
 
…but after we went red, the old roman shade plus the red = clash, bang, boom.  No go.

But at the time, I thought I’d just whip up a new, magnetic shade (the door is metal) right after I got the door painted.  And whip one up I did…but not until a few months later.  Oops.

‘Tis:

[And in case you missed it, we painted the walls white a few weeks ago.]

And here’s how I did it.

First, I cut a piece of fabric (just some plain white broadcloth) to the size I wanted the shade to be plus two inches per side for seam allowances (I wanted it to be 27” x 37” finished so I cut my fabric to be 29” x 39”).  I used a new pattern-cutting mat I found on clearance at Walmart ($3).  It’s just cardboard so I won’t ever be able to use a rotary cutter on it (great though because I don’t own one!) but hopefully it’ll help me cut perfect squares/rectangles.  I simply laid my fabric on the mat, held it in place with a few big vases, and cut along the lines.



After I had my seemingly perfect rectangle, I took it to the ironing board and ironed a half-inch hem on all sides.

This is where the extra two inches in my cut fabric comes in.  To get a half-inch hem, I needed an extra one inch of fabric on each of the four sides. (If you’re anything but a sewing beginner, you might want to skip ahead.)  At the ironing table, I worked on one side at a time, first laying out the side to be ironed.

Using my measuring tape, I folded my fabric over one-half inch and ironed the fold (except originally I thought I wanted a one-inch hem which is why the picture below shows me folding over one-inch!  Sorry!  Pretend I’m measuring a half-inch!)

Then I folded the fabric over onto itself one more time so that I had done two half-inch folds.

After I ironed that second fold down, I pinned my hem down so that I could sew it.  Next I sewed a simple straight stitch down each side, staying as close to the inside of the hem as I could. 

Sewing a big rectangle like this to be used as a shade or a curtain panel is something easy to attempt if you’re just starting to sew.  All you have to do is sew a straight line and you’re set!  :)

When I was finished with the fabric part of my shade, I added some black pom pom trim to the bottom to liven things up a little.  I probably should’ve pinned the trim into place before sewing but instead I just held it on and used a straight stitch to attach it.  I only wanted the pom poms plus a sliver of the top ribbon showing on the front of the shade so I sewed it to the back of the shade vs. the front.

Now for the magnetic part.  To attach the shade to the door each night, my plan was to install a couple of button holes that could hold a couple of these magnetic hooks (in white) I found on clearance at Target a few years ago.

  I’ve never sewn button holes before so I was a tad nervous about trying them now but after watching this video tutorial I’m no longer afraid because they’re pretty easy.  All I had to do was make a couple of marks where I wanted my button holes (I made them an inch in and down at the top corners of my shade), attach my button foot fit with a random button about the size I wanted my holes to be, and my sewing machine did the rest.

And that’s it!  *In case you don’t sew, this could easily be done using some heat ‘n bond tape for the hemming and glue for the pom pom trim!  Punch in a couple of little grommets at the two top corners, hang it like I did mine, and you’re done!*

The trash bag went to it’s rightful place under the sink to be reused and the shade now keeps us private at night.  During the day I’ve been hanging it to the side like this:
 
But if I get sick of doing that I can always just hang it on the hooks next to the door.

I spent an hour making this shade last week and another hour painting this mirror in the living room:


Here’s what it looked like before:

Black and a nice, gawdy gold.  I found it at Goodwill last year and finally got around to hanging it last month. 
I spray primed it and then painted it a light gray (acheived by mixing some charcoal and white latex paints I had on hand).


After the paint was dry, I scraped the paint off the mirror (like I did this mirror), hung it, and called it done…for now.  I might add a gold border around the inside edge the next time I need a little paint therapy.  You know I’ll let you know.  :)
 

Between the shade and this mirror, I felt pretty darn accomplished last week.  This week is a different story so far; not a thing has gotten done.  Oh wait, I did get dressed from head to toe Monday!

And then we left the house headed for the grocery store, got to the grocery store, loaded the limo cart (you know, the ones you have to have a 10 mile radius around you in order to turn)…

[image from Raising Bluebirds]
…loaded up and paid only to walk out of the grocery store and after digging through my purse, was unable to find the car keys anywhere. Great.  Did I leave them in the car?  Did I drop them?  I have frozen food and three little people in my cart…what am I going to do?!  Oh look!  It’s pouring outside.  Great-er.  Well I guess we’ll just stand under the overhead cover at the store entrance until it stops and then we’ll head over to the van and find the keys because I probably just left them in the van, right?  Waiting, waiting…five minutes waiting.  Kids are getting antsy; food is probably thawing.  Ok, we’ll just have to run for it.  So we did.  We I ran for it.  Limo and all.  The doors are unlocked which means the keys are probably in the ignition or on the seat (so irresponsible) but before I grab them I toss the wet kids in along with the wet groceries and then I go to grab the keys but…wait, they’re not there.  They’re not anywhere!  Blast!  Why did I have to leave the house?!  Why?  Why?  WHY?  Call Anthony.  Oh yes, He’ll come help me.  (Calls Anthony.)  He’s on his way home anyway but can’t get here for another twenty or so minutes.  Ok.  So we sit in the van while it rains and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Ten minutes pass and the rain slows to a sprinkle.  It’s getting stuffy in here and I’m pretty sure somebody let one slip.  Ah, I can’t breathe!  Ok.  I’ll just pack the kids back up and we’ll go inside to see if anyone turned the keys in.  Of course there’s always the other situation in which someone is now using the keys that I dropped to get into my house and steal all our things but let’s just try and focus on the positive shall we?  Positive, positive, positive.  My glass is half-full and there is a spring in my (wet) step.  Ugh, WHY did I have to leave the house?!  Deep breaths.  Grab Sebastian; the girls can walk. With one load in one arm and a chain of two little girls in the other, we traipsed back into the store and headed to the customer service counter where, after asking about my keys and being questioned about what kind and what did they look like so as to tell whether they really were mine before handing them over, I got my keys back.  Where I dropped them only one person knows and why I dropped them?  Oh, I know that one!  It’s because between juggling groceries and kids, who has time to make sure where her car keys are?  Not me! 

(And that is probably the first (yes, first) and last time I ever go on a weeks-worth-of-food grocery run with kids ever, ever, ever again.)

The end.

Wait, wasn’t this post about a shade?  Seems like she might have a little PTSD.  Probably.  

From Mini-Blind to Roman Shade

A very long time ago when the world was a little younger, I pinned Jenny’s (from Little Green Notebook) genius idea of making a roman shade out of mini-blinds.  (Since then she’s revised the process and so I’ve updated my pin to lead me to the new tutorial.)  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I finally got around to executing it for our front door.

I followed her instructions by the book blog all the way until the last step and so if you’re hankering to make one for yourself (which you totally should be), you can get all the details from her.  There were a few parts that I was a little confused on and since I’m the tutorial nerd I am, here’s the very detailed way I made our newest roman shade.

First of all, the supplies.  You’ll need a mini-blind (I got mine at Target), fabric of your choice, either a sewing machine or some iron-on tape for a no-sew version, a needle and thread, craft glue, and some plastic rings.

Measure the window or door or whatever it is you’re covering with your shade before you start.  That way you’ll know what size mini-blind to purchase and how much fabric to buy.  I used one of these Room Essentials curtain panels for my shade:

It was originally from Target but I found it at a local discount store, Dirt Cheap, for $3.

I cut and hemmed it according to Jenny’s instructions.  If you’re doing a no-sew version of this shade, you’ll only have to fold the edges once as you iron on your tape so you’ll really only need to cut your fabric to be two inches longer and two inches wider than the size you want your finished shade to be (here’s a great tutorial on how to use iron-on tape for hemming).  That way you’ll have a one-inch hem on all four sides of the fabric rectangle that will soon be your finished shade.

After you’ve hemmed your fabric to size, lay out your mini blind.  (P.S. You won’t need the tilt wand that you turn to open and close the blind.  Toss it or use it to stir your grande latte…whatever makes your boat float people.)       

Completely cut off the bottomrail by snipping through all the strings attaching it.

Then cut all the strings holding the slats on but don’t cut the string that controls the raising and lowering of the blind, aka the lift cords.  In other words, cut the vertical strings that run down the front and back of the slats and all of the horizontal, ladder-like strings, but don’t cut the vertical strings that run down the middle/through the holes in each slat. 

On the mini-blind I bought, the strings holding the slats on were thinner than the thick ones that controlled the blind.

To completely remove the slat strings you can cut them off where they loop around the inside top of the headrail.

Next, pull off all the slats.

Give a couple of slats to your kids to buy a few extra minutes of time to work on this project uninhibited.  Don’t worry, they’re too flimsy to do any real damage.  :)

So, the slats are all off and you’re left with the headrail, the lift cords, and the bottomrail (not pictured but keep it!)  Side note:  Depending on the width of your blind, you may have three lift cords vs. two like mine.  Make sure you don’t cut any of them off!

Now grab your hemmed fabric and line it up along the headrail (where it’ll soon be permanently glued).  I lined mine up so that I had about 1/4 of an inch of fabric above the very top of the headrail.  Next, pull the lift cords down so they’re nice and straight and parallel to the sides of the fabric and, starting from the bottom of the fabric, measure up eight inches along each string and make a small pencil mark.  This is where the bottom set of rings will go.  After that, continue to measure up each cord, placing marks every 10 inches.  (You can make the spaces between rings shorter or longer depending on whatever you think looks best.  I followed Jenny’s recommended measurements.)

Here’s a pixlr’d image showing where I placed my marks:
(I realized after I was finished with the entire shade that I didn’t need the two topmost marks/rings.  If there’s less than four inches between where your topmost marks are and the headrail, you probably don’t need to place rings at those top marks.)  Note the little feet…somebody wouldn’t nap while both her sis and bro were so an audience she became.  :)

After you’ve marked where all of your rings will go, measure the distance between where the cord comes out of the headrail and the end of your shade on each side.
Then, using that measurement, double check to make sure all of your marks are that distance in from the edge of your fabric all the way down.  If you laid your cords out nice and straight before you started marking, you should be spot on if not pretty close but I did this just to double check.

Next, grab your plastic rings (I used the ones in the photo below), a needle, and coordinating thread.  Jenny used clear thread and I would recommend that as well only I didn’t have any and you know this mom ain’t running out “quick” for clear thread.  I’ll settle for white in exchange for less stress, thankyouverymuch.  

Now simply sew a ring onto your shade at each mark you made, except for the very bottom set of marks.  The bottomrail of the mini-blind will go there.

After you’ve attached all of the plastic rings, grab your craft glue and glue your fabric along the headrail.  Hot glue would probably work too though it might be more ‘bumpy’ under your fabric.

Once I had the fabric glued on straight, I made sure it was flat along the headrail and then I propped some books on top of it to hold it down while it dried.  I left it this way for 24 hours, giving the glue lots of time to dry completely. 

While the glue is drying, grab the bottomrail of the mini-blind.  In her tutorial, Jenny used a thin slat of wood and eye screws as the bottom part of her shade, but once again, I didn’t have either of these things.  So, I improvised.  First, I cut about six inches of string off the bottom of each of my lift cords.  Using the existing workings of the bottomrail of the mini-blind, I popped off the small round plug that holds in the all the string, threaded my six inch piece through the hole, strung a plastic ring onto the string, tied a knot, stuffed the string into the rail, and stuck the plastic plug back on.  Get all that?  In case you didn’t…

Now the only thing left to do is to glue that bottomrail along where you made the bottommost (Word?  Not a word?) marks.

Just make sure when you glue it down that your rings are at the top of the rail/closest to the top of the shade.

Once all the glue is dry, the last step is to thread the lift cords down through each plastic ring and tie each onto the bottom rings that are attached to the bottomrail like so:

And that’s it!  Hang your completed shade with the hardware that came with the mini-blind and you’re done! 

Here’s what ours looks like down:

[Excuse the toddler litter.]
Anthony’s not a fan because he thinks it looks like there’s a painting on our front door but I love it.  It’s a far cry from boring and that’s exactly what this previously hum-drum space needed.  (Speaking of painting though, as I was mid-project I couldn’t help but think how cool this curtain panel would’ve looked stretched over a wood frame and mounted as artwork.  So cool, no?)  Hopefully once I get the new lighting up and add some other details, Anthony’s mind will be forever changed…or at least until I decide to redecorate.

The only negative part about this shade idea is that, because the fabric I used is more silky than stiff, I have to adjust its layers after I raise it.  The ends fall and it looks like this: 
I could change that by somehow placing some long dowels horizontally along each set of rings but the few seconds it takes me to straighten things out isn’t a big deal so I’ll probably just take it as a lesson learned and use a thicker, stiffer fabric next time.

Cost?  Well, let’s see:
Mini-blind:  $3 (Target)
Fabric:  $3 (Target curtain panel via Dirt Cheap)
Plastic rings:  $1.50 (JoAnn Fabrics with a 50% off coupon)
Thread and craft glue:  $0 (already had but both but they’re from JoAnn Fabrics and Michaels, respectively)
Project total:  $7.50

As long as mini-blinds are being manufactured and I have windows and doors to cover with roman shades, I’ll be going this route again and again because, not only it is a lot cheaper and less difficult than making ‘real’ roman shades, but they also look almost if not exactly the same.

So, is there any shade-making in your future?  I know it seems like it might be a tedious task but really it was pretty easy and if I’d had an hour to devote to making it, it would’ve taken me just that hour plus drying time to finish it vs. the weeks I had it laying around half-finished because my life be like kids, kids, kids.  Either way, I love our new shade and I’m so very grateful for those kids, kids, kids.

Happy Hump Day!  :)