Pages

Monday, October 15, 2012

~no sew window treatment~

It's you're lucky day.
This will probably be my shortest post ever, due to not being able to find any of my tutorial pics. :)
Buuuut I did do this project over a year ago so I guess that's to be expected......right?
This window above my kitchen sink faces my neighbors two story brick wall.
 
 
It's not the best view but I do like the light that streams in at different times of the day, so I took that into consideration when deciding what type of treatment I wanted.
I didn't want anything that was too long so I couldn't display anything on the ledge, nor did I want to cover up too much of the window and lose the natural light.
And I'm not really into or very good at patterned fabrics so I decided on a short valance with some leftover drop cloth.
 
  
After trying to give you a tutorial, I'm realizing it's not super easy without those pics.
Darn. Well I'll just do my best.
I measured the window and cut my fabric about 8" longer than the window to allow for a little "bunching". Cut your fabric extra long. That bunching takes up more fabric than you might think. I allowed about a 2.5" overhang on the back over the tension rod, and attached it with stich witchery to the back of the curtain.
It looked a little plain so I added some grosgrain ribbon and tied some little bows at the bottom.
 
I've been moving my Halloween decor all over the place this year.
I can't seem to get it just how I want it.
Free printable from last year and some white pumpkins I bought from our new
Traders Joe's.
 
I still need to print out some halloween labels for the wine bottles.

  
 
Thanks for stopping by!
Stephanie

Sunday, October 7, 2012

~chevron pumpkin~

Like many of you I received my Country Living mag in the mail and was immediately in love with the chevron painted pumpkin on the cover. Suuuper cute. So today after church while Haley was taking turns riding her ripstick, bike, scooter and making a mess of the front yard, =0), I kept an eye on her while I went to work taping off my pumpkin.
It was really cold out. As in 52 degrees AND cloudy so we in Texas were dying. =0)
Haley was kind enough to take a picture of me and I forgot I was wearing her Monkey hat. #awkward :)


To be honest, I didn't really look at the instructions. I figured it was kind of common sense so went after it with reckless abandon, thinking it wouldn't take very long. And it didn't take too long but still longer than I thought it would. Taking into consideration that I didn't mark out the lines at all I guess it wasn't too bad.
 
After this I didn't take any more pictures because I kind of had a rhythm going.
The fun part about this project is that after you tape everything off, your kids can spray paint it or brush the paint it on..whichever method you decide to apply paint with.
I used my Rustoleum Heirloom White because Haley is ALWAYS begging me to let her spray paint something and she doesn't get to nearly as much as she would like.
Pretty sure when she's 15 I will need to hide the spray paint cans because that girls LOVES the smell of it.
She loved this part and it was perfect because it didn't matter if it was perfect or not. We had a few drippy spots but no biggie. It adds character and most importantly it was fun.
Please try and ignore the disastrous mess we call our garage. It's really bad in this pic.
While you wait for the paint to dry on your pumpkin before peeling the tape off,
you can do other random gung-ho projects.
Like clean out your garage. By yourself. While your husband watches football and snores on the couch, and while your kid watches you struggle to move things while she does this.

She set up an obstacle course for herself which I thought was pretty genius.
The cowboy boots crack me up. Isn't that what you would wear while riding a ripstick?
 

I would have included a picture of snoring hubby "watching" football but I'm pretty sure you ladies already know what that looks like. ;o)
 
Finally peel off your tape and forget to take a picture of it, so at least get one of the the final product.
 
Trust me I'm the first to admit it bled through quite a bit and isn't a total "beaut" up close.
I was kind of sad about it but decided to display it out front where passing cars won't have too much time to focus on the not-perfectly-crisp lines.
Tip: get the really thin textured painters tape. I've gotten it before by accident and had I still had any left I would have used it instead. It think it would be easier to get into the grooves.
I may try this again with black and white, using the thinner textured tape.
If I do I'll let you know if I feel like the results are better.
At least I have a clean garage now! Well, clean for us. We desparately need some storage shelves but they will have to wait until all of our credit cards are paid off at the end of December.
Two more months baby.
 
So what do you think? Have you tried the Chevron pumpkin? Did you have success with crisp lines? Do you generally get more done when it's a random project or when you plan a project?
Thanks for reading!
 
~Stephanie
(I started an Etsy shop, so please check it out here. More items to come soon.)