Grommet Curtain Panels

Last week I left you with this image of some lovely fabric I had ordered.

This week I am back to share the grommet curtain panels that I made for our bedroom using this fabric.  I made these panels the same way that I made the curtain panels in both our living room and dining room which I detailed in this post.

I started by cutting the fabric.  I was concerned about how the panels would look if I didn't line up the pattern on each panel so I made sure that each panel was cut so that the patterns lined up with each other.

Ironing the sides

Laid out and ready for the lining

Lining

Pinning the lining

After I finished sewing the panels it was time to add the grommets.  I found the grommets at Joann Fabrics and they come with 8 in a pack so I purchased a package for each panel.  Putting in the grommets is actually quite simple.

p.s. watching New Girl will help aid in the process of constructing curtain panels.

I measured the top of the panel.  I didn't really want to do any math so I just laid the grommets out and eyeballed it.

Then I used the provided template to trace the circles that would be cut out.

Then I cut out the holes.  They don't have to be perfectly round as evidenced by the above picture.

Finally I snapped the grommets in place.  One side of the grommet has grooves and the other has little spiky things so that they snap together.  If you mess up in placing them they are easy to pop off again.

And that was all there was to it.  Now I finally have some curtains to hang on the curtain rod that I put up months ago.

I love these so much because they turned out exactly like I had envisioned the curtains for this room. I like the grommets so much that I am thinking about adding smaller grommets to my living room curtains. Let me know what you think of my grommet curtain panels!

DIY Bracelet Holder

I am back this evening with a post on a simple project that I created in an afternoon. The best part of this project is that it only required stuff I had laying around the house already with the exception of one item.  So I have an obsession with a particular item of jewelry/accessory but it stems partially from necessity.  I have been teaching at the same school for the past 4 years and the clock in my classroom never seems to work.  Because of this I have gotten in the habit of wearing a watch everyday.  The danger of this is that there are a lot of cute watches out there so my collection has gotten fairly large.  I needed a way to store all of them.  I am no stranger to jewelry and accessory organization.  My post on my necklace and scarf organizer and my earring frames has been viewed 36,000 times. I had no idea it would be so popular!

After seeing this post from the iheartorganizing blog I knew that I had to make my own bracelet display.  So I gathered up my supplies and got to work.

Supplies:

1. Paper towel tube-I actually had a sturdy cardboard tube from my Silhouette adhesive vinyl

2. Wood plaque for the base-this was my only purchased item for this project at $2.99

3. Wooden dowel-I had some leftover from my washi tape organizing project

4. Fabric-I used leftover fabric from some monogrammed napkins that I made this summer

5. Drill

6. Glue gun

7. Mod Podge

8. Paint-the little bottle of Martha Stewart Vintage Gold paint that I got at Home Depot can last for a lot of projects!

I started by sawing my dowel down to the length I wanted and then drilling a hole in the wood plaque just a little smaller than the wooden dowel.  I didn't glue it in because it was pretty snug and our wood glue was dried up but you can if you want it to be more secure.

I then painted to coats of gold paint after I did a coat of primer.

Next I used Mod Podge to attach the fabric to the paper towel tube.

I used my drill to put the hole in my cardboard tube since it was really thick but if you are using a paper towel tube you might want to use something like an knife to poke the hole.  I used hot glue to secure the tube to the base.

And that is it.  My $2.99 bracelet and watch display is complete.  I apologize for my dusty dresser in the pictures above.  Maybe dusting needs to be my next project.  Right now I am hard at work on my next project because look what showed up on my porch on Tuesday!  I can't wait to share this one with you next week.

Gifts and Cards and Labels Oh My!

I am now in that time of my life when weddings and baby showers are things that I attend frequently. Actually the number of weddings that I attend has been greatly reduced but now all the people whose weddings I have attended over the last few years are moving on to the next stage of their life and starting their families.  I love to attend both events because I take any chance that I can get to be creative and make something for someone.

A few weekends ago I attended yet another baby shower.  My giant stack of burp cloths is actually getting pretty small now so I might need to make a few more.  I have been having fun lately designing cards using my Silhouette Portrait.

I now have the designer software and my favorite feature is being able to turn anything into a sketch design.  For this card I used a baby carriage shape I found in the store and made the wheels into a sketch design and used a metallic sketch pen to sketch it onto kraft paper.  I then cut out the rest of the shape on a pearly baby blue paper and glued it to the card.  I sketched the the "congrats" onto some textured card stock and glued it to the card.  I drew the string for the banner by hand and then cut out the flags of the banner from washi tape.  I also put a piece of washi tape at the bottom.  I think it turned out so cute!

In July I attended a wedding and I shared the tutorial of how to make a heat transfer monogram for napkins with the Silhouette software in this post

I attended another wedding last weekend and made another set of heat transfer monogrammed napkins for the bride and groom.

For this set I used a gray fabric with a sparkly silver polka dot pattern.  I tweaked my monogram design slightly for this set by using a different block letter font and making the last name initial larger than the first name initial.  

Along with the napkins I bought silverware of of their registry.  It was the perfect gift combo.  I made a card with purple card stock (purple was one of their wedding colors).  I cut this beautiful cake design from the Silhouette online store out of silver paper.  Then I sketched the cake stand and the congratulations with a silver sketch pen.

You may have noticed my new sewing labels in a few of the pictures above.

My new blog logo and header design inspired me to redesign my labels.  You can check out my post on how I made my original sewing labels here.  I used the same process to make these but the Silhouette designer software gave me the freedom to use any font and any shape and make it into a sketch design.  I made the house by just using the line tool and then changing the line to a dashed line to make it look like stitches.  It was so simple.  

There should be some posts on home diy in the near future.  I have all the supplies to work on a project today, the fabric for our bedroom curtains is on order, and I just bought a bunch of paint samples at Home Depot on Thursday for the office.  I am excited to get back to it now that school has started and I am done with my beginning of the year preparations for teaching.  

Putting Plans Down on Paper (or in the Blogosphere)

Even though I haven't completed many home projects lately which explains the lack of posts lately my mind has been bubbling over with ideas.  I find it helpful to write these ideas down otherwise I feel that I will forget them.  Today I thought I would share some of those plans with the blog world. So back in December I wrote this post on three big projects that I wanted to complete by the end of this summer.  I have been working on project #1 closet organization for quite sometime now and I feel that this one will probably continue to be a work in progress.  Organizing takes time yall!  But here is where the project is at now:

My 2nd project was to redo my dining set.  I successfully completed this project before Easter so that it would be ready to seat my family for Easter dinner.  I LOVE how it turned out.  

My 3rd project was to take out the carpet on the stairs and upstairs west bedroom and hallway and refinish the wood floors.  Unfortunately this project won't be happening.  I didn't trust my diy skills on this one so we had a couple of floor refinishers come out and do bids.  It would have cost us around 6 grand and we just weren't willing to pay that for a project that was merely cosmetic.  And boy were we glad that we decided not to because a month later this happened:

Yep that is an entire sheet of shingles sliding off of our roof.  We had a pretty crazy wind storm that loosened up some of our shingles.  You can see another sheet of them that is buckling and ready to slide too.  Another sheet of them also slipped off of another part of the roof.  Currently we have tarp over those two spots but we have had roofers out to give us bids.  Insurance is paying for a hefty chunk of our new roof but we do have to pay some out of pocket so we are glad we didn't decide to redo those floors.  It will be nice to get a new roof that will last for 30 years.

Okay now for all those ideas bubbling in my head.  If you want to pin images from this post please go to the original source for the pin.  First up, the office.  Currently the room is purple and I love purple but it is just too saturated and dark of a purple for my liking.

For the walls I am thinking a pale mint like these inspiration pics

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I would also like to buy a cheap dresser at a thrift store or garage sale to store sewing patterns and other craft supplies.  Above the the dresser I would love to have a memo board like this one:

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Next up, our bedroom.  So I did some work with this room over the last year giving it a new paint color, redone furniture, new bedding and a curtain rod.  Currently it looks like this:

I would love to paint the closet doors a dark brown or black like this:

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I have been wanting to add curtains for a long time but I haven't found the right fabric until now.  I love Premier Prints, they are seriously the best.

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Unfortunately other people must love it too because it is currently unavailable.  But I've waited this long so I can wait a little longer! 

When I was in Target awhile ago I snapped this inspiration pic for my lamps.

Currently my lamps look like this:

But I would love to update the shades with a stencil and maybe even paint the base.

Lastly, I need a way to organize/display my always growing collection of watches and I love this diy jewelry display project from Iheartorganizing:

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So those are some projects that I would like to tackle in the near future.  Those projects will certainly keep me plenty busy.  Check back later this week for a handmade gift post.