Brought To You By The Letter M

See this letter M?

It's been bugging me for awhile now, it just seems so dark and dreary. I originally made it out of a clearance letter M and some scraps from our first apartment's curtains, but it was time for a change up. (I of course took pictures for y'all along the way, because I seem to have this problem now where I can't do even the simplest DIY task without taking pictures of the process.).
 So here is what I did, it literally took me 10 minutes to do this and is the same process I used the first time.

Here is a close-up of the M before.

I ripped off the fabric and this is what we had. When I originally bought it was green and white zebra striped. I felt judged by the cashier for buying it and I didn't blame her...it was that kinda ugly. I painted it white before I Mod Podged it last time, but you can still kinda see the zebra stripes.

I wanted to brighten it up, so in true No Spend style I used what I had - which in this case was leftover curtain fabric (again). I wanted to use a fabric that was already in the room since we're getting a little  patterny in there. According to my husband at least, except that he called it "frou-frou". Don't feel bad for him, there IS a giant manly snakeskin on our wall that I'm sure you've noticed.

Anyway, I had juuuust enough left.

I traced the letter onto the fabric...

Then cut it out..

Mod Podged the letter...

Then I carefully placed the cutout on the glue and brushed more over top (to keep the frays in check).

Done. Easy Peasy.

Here it is before and after so you can see how the new fabric brightens up the shelf.

Funny how such a small change can balance out a whole display. I'm always moving things around on there so a few other things changed too...I feel like my before and after should be in a Highlights magazine. Does anyone else remember those, with the "spot five things that are different" photo games?

Linked to:Thrifty Decor Chick, Addicted 2 Decorating, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Savvy Southern Style, The Shabby Creek Cottage, The Shabby Nest, Tatertots & Jello, Under the Table and Dreaming, Someday Crafts, Chic on a Shoestring, Miss Mustard Seed, Southern Hospitality, Sugar Bee Crafts, Tip Junkie, The Thrifty Home,  Beyond the Picket Fence, Oops I Craft My Pants, Between Naps on the Porch, Not Just A Housewife, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, I Heart Nap Time, Serenity Now, French Country Cottage, Remodelaholic, Creations By Kara, Homework, The 36th Avenue, Freckled Laundry, Coastal Charm, Handy Man Crafty Woman, Keeping It Simple,  Blue Cricket Design, Be Colorful, Craft O Maniac, Skip to my Lou, Fingerprints on the Fridge, Dittle Dattle, Polly Want A Crafter?, Whipperberry, Sassy Sites, DIY By Design, The Girl Creative, It's Overflowing, A Girl ans a Glue Gun, Delightful Order, Fireflies & Jellybeans, Southern Lovely, Sew Much Ado, Young & Crafty, Homemaker on a Dime, Be Different Act Normal, Primitive & Proper, Lolly Jane, DIY Home Sweet Home, Lines Across My Face, Making the World Cuter, Fun to Craft, Nifty Thrifty Things, The Crafty Nest, Running with Glitter, Designer Garden, Cherished Bliss, CRAFT, Lil Luna, All Thingz Related, House of Hepworths, Oopsy Daisy, Domestically Speaking, Ginger Snap Crafts, Home Stories A to Z, Vintage Wanna Bee,

How To Make Custom Curtains

Yesterday I told you how to make your own curtain rods on the cheap, and today we are moving onto curtains! 

  Curtains are so supurbly easy to make. If you can sew a straight stitch on your sewing machine, than you can make curtains. If you don't own a sewing machine than you could sew it by hand, it would just take longer. 

So the first step is to buy your fabric. I recommend using home decor fabric, but you can certainly use whatever fabric you like, including sheets or dropcloths. I'm working on debrowning my living room and this is the fabric I chose to dress up my naked windows.

link

The first step is to cut your fabric. Measure the length from the top of your curtain rod to the floor and then add 12 inches. My windows measured 92 inches, so I cut the fabric to 104 inches each. 

Then your going to need to iron. First iron the edges of your curtain by folding the blank edge over until you can barely see the print.

Then fold them over one more time and press. This gives your curtains a finished edge.

Next iron the top and bottom by folding it over once and pressing.

Then fold over the top making sure your mindful of the way your pattern runs...you don't end up with upside down curtains! Make it about 3-4 inches wide...I just used my phone to measure.

Then stitch all your edges except the bottom.

Next your going to need to hang the curtains in order to hem them to the correct length.
 I wanted my curtains to look like back tab curtains (which I show you how to make here) without actually having to sew back tabs. So I bought these rings

 and clipped them to the back of the curtain instead if the top, like so...

Once your curtains are hung, fold up the bottoms so that the curtains barely grazes the floor and pin.

Then take it down, hem it, and hang it back up. Done! Cheap and easy custom curtains!

Here is my window before..

and after!

Linked to:

Thrifty Decor Chick, Addicted 2 Decorating, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Savvy Southern Style, The Shabby Creek Cottage, The Shabby Nest, Tatertots & Jello, Under the Table and Dreaming, Someday Crafts, Chic on a Shoestring, Miss Mustard Seed, Southern Hospitality, Sugar Bee Crafts, Tip Junkie, The Thrifty Home,  Beyond the Picket Fence, Oops I Craft My Pants, Between Naps on the Porch, Not Just A Housewife, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, I Heart Nap Time, Serenity Now, French Country Cottage, Remodelaholic, Creations By Kara, Homework, The 36th Avenue, Freckled Laundry, Coastal Charm, Handy Man Crafty Woman, Keeping It Simple,  Blue Cricket Design, Be Colorful, Craft O Maniac, Skip to my Lou, Fingerprints on the Fridge, Dittle Dattle, Polly Want A Crafter?, Whipperberry, Sassy Sites, DIY By Design, The Girl Creative, It's Overflowing, A Girl ans a Glue Gun, Delightful Order, Fireflies & Jellybeans, Southern Lovely, Sew Much Ado, Young & Crafty, Homemaker on a Dime, Be Different Act Normal, Primitive & Proper, Lolly Jane, DIY Home Sweet Home, Lines Across My Face, Making the World Cuter, Fun to Craft, Nifty Thrifty Things, The Crafty Nest, Running with Glitter, Designer Garden, Cherished Bliss, CRAFT, Lil Luna, All Thingz Related, House of Hepworths, Oopsy Daisy, Domestically Speaking, Ginger Snap Crafts, Home Stories A to Z, Vintage Wanna Bee, The CSI Project, Newlyweds on a Budget

How To Make Your Own Curtain Rods On The Cheap

Making your own curtain rods is super easy and super cheap.... it's a project you can do even if your not a DIY kinda person. Here is the rod I made for ten bucks, including all the hardware.

(I apologize beforehand for taking the WORST window pictures ever. I'm convinced it's impossible to get a good one unless you have a fancy schmancy camera, which I do not.)

The secret to the homemade curtain rod is electrical conduit, which you can find at any hardware store. I love this stuff and have used it all over my house. I used it to make my laundry room curtains...

My funky, uneven, dining room bay window curtains...

My master bedroom curtains (which I never blogged about)...

and now my living room ones.

Now if you read a lot of DIY blogs than electrical conduit doesn't seem very original idea, but when I was trying to make my three little bedroom windows look like a wall of windows I had never seen conduit used before. So it's an original idea that everyone else thought of too, lol. 

Anyway, electrical conduit can be found in the electrical isle of your hardware store and is about $2-3 dollars for ten feet (depending on the thickness).  I bought the 3/4 inch, but I think most people buy the 1/2 inch. I like mine beefy :)

The first step is to cut it down to size. I used a hacksaw, but if you know what length you want they will cut it for you in the store. You could also buy your own pipe cutter if you feel like spending some $, but since your reading this post I'm assuming you don't!

So here is my process....

First, cut it to length. Or if your feeling lazy, have your overzealous toddler do it for you.

I cut mine about two feet longer than my window is wide (I want the curtains to cover more wall than window, to make the window look bigger).

 Then spray paint them whatever color your heart desires. I usually leave mine raw because I like the look, but this time I used rings on the curtains and wanted them to match. Here is the raw one and the one I painted pewter...

 Then hang your brackets. Mine cost a little under $4 a set at Home Depot. I like to hang mine higher than the window...it's all about making those windows look big and bright!

Then add your finials to the end of your rod. This is where you can get creative! I used decorative wicker balls for mine, but I thought about using decorated leftover Christmas ornaments or light bulbs, old doorknobs, cabinet pulls, big silk flowers, river rocks...

I found these at Hobby Lobby for less than two dollars a pop. 

(Also, in case you are unaware, you can always print out a 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby.com)

I want to be able to easily take down the curtains for washing so I made one of my finials removable. I wanted to glue a wine cork to the ball and insert it that way, but my husband and I aren't drinkers and don't have any lying around. Sooo, I got a little creative - and a little bit ghetto - and came up with this... 

It's a big 'ol drywall screw that I wrapped duct tape around and glued to my ball. Then I just inserted it into the conduit to hide my ghettoness creativity.

Lastly, put your rods in the brackets and TA DA...custom curtain rods for ten bucks!

Tomorrow I'll be back with a tutorial for making curtains...which are just as easy to make as the rod. Here's a sneak peak :)

Update: You can see the post on how to make curtains HERE.

Linked to:


Thrifty Decor Chick, Addicted 2 Decorating, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Savvy Southern Style, The Shabby Creek Cottage, The Shabby Nest, Tatertots & Jello, Under the Table and Dreaming, Someday Crafts, Chic on a Shoestring, Miss Mustard Seed, Southern Hospitality, Sugar Bee Crafts, Tip Junkie, The Thrifty Home,  Beyond the Picket Fence, Oops I Craft My Pants, Between Naps on the Porch, Not Just A Housewife, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, I Heart Nap Time, Serenity Now, French Country Cottage, Remodelaholic, Creations By Kara, Homework, The 36th Avenue, Freckled Laundry, Coastal Charm, Handy Man Crafty Woman, Keeping It Simple,  Blue Cricket Design, Be Colorful, Craft O Maniac, Skip to my Lou, Fingerprints on the Fridge, Dittle Dattle, Polly Want A Crafter?, Whipperberry, Sassy Sites, DIY By Design, The Girl Creative, It's Overflowing, A Girl ans a Glue Gun, Delightful Order, Fireflies & Jellybeans, Southern Lovely, Sew Much Ado, Young & Crafty, Homemaker on a Dime, Be Different Act Normal, Primitive & Proper, Lolly Jane, DIY Home Sweet Home, Lines Across My Face, Making the World Cuter, Fun to Craft, Nifty Thrifty Things, The Crafty Nest, Running with Glitter, Designer Garden, Cherished Bliss, CRAFT, Lil Luna, All Thingz Related, House of Hepworths, Oopsy Daisy, Domestically Speaking, Ginger Snap Crafts, Home Stories A to Z, Vintage Wanna Bee, The CSI Project, Newlyweds on a Budget

(Pre Blog) Living Room Floor & Shelves

One the first projects we did after moving in (besides painting over all the pink) was ripping up the carpet in the living room and hallway replacing it with wood. We did this in December of 2010, so you will have to excuse the crapiness of the photos. I had no idea that anyone besides my family would see these, as it was a pre blog project. Anyway, here is what our floors look like. 

I freakin love them. 

Why? 

Carpet is gross. When I clean these I know they're CLEAN (keyword is when).

They look amazing. 

They're hand scraped and somewhat rustic and hold up beautifully. They've gotten a few scratches since we've put them in, but they were well deserved. 

We got a really good deal on them. 

They make my totally not fancy house feel custom and expensive, lol. 

Oh, and no more carpet. That's worth mentioning twice.

So the terrible pictures I was telling you about? Here ya go.

The very before...

The just before

The during (they're glued down)

Now

They're handscraped  Acacia  from Skyline Floorscapes. I couldn't tell you what color or the exact price, but want to say they were around $4 a square foot (including glue). That's WAY cheap for nice engineered flooring. One of the best parts is that they come in a lot of different lengths (as opposed to the normal one length). You usually have to add about 10% for waste, however we had basically no wasted wood. The only leftovers we had were used to make the counter in our laundry room, and if you go check it out you'll see that its not much.

Also, along with replacing the floor we also replaced the trim...we're working on slowly replacing the trim throughout the entire house. 

Before.

Now.

Next item up is the shelves in the living room (we did these not long after the floors.) I really really wish I had taken more pictures of the process, it would have made a great tutorial. 

I designed these...we needed a solution for our huge empty living room wall and we also needed storage. (They are pretty substantial, the longest one is twelve feet.) My brother in law, Keith, did most of the actual building. (He's a woodworker and dang good at it.) They're designed to look like solid pieces of rustic wood, but in reality they're just made of plywood. Keith and Adam decided to use the "bad side" of the plywood so that there would be more variation and knots showing. We sanded the crud out of them, stained with our own concoction (so they would match the floors) and finished with tung oil.

Now, we could have just cut some plywood and put them together, but then the ends would have showed and you would know instantly that they are simply little plywood boxes. Instead, Keith decided to cut all the pieces at a 45 degree angle so that all seams would be hidden. Here is a close up shot...

Totally should have dusted before I took close up pics. Oh well, my secrets out...I have dusty shelves.

The shame!

I did take a couple pictures when they were being installed. Here is before, and if you look closely at the shelves on the floor you can see how they are hollow in the center.

To get them to stay on the wall, the boys hung a strip of wood the size of the opening and then slid the shelf on (actually they had to pound them on, those suckers aren't going anywhere). 

 To keep them from potentially drooping and to add an industrial look we secured the shelf front to the wall with wire cable. 

(Oh the wires...we need to put them in the wall. Hubby nagging commences now.)

And there you have it, beautiful custom shelves. Consider yourself caught up on all of our living room projects. Now to move onto the new, fun, non brown ones :)

Linked to:Lines Across My Face, Between Naps on the Porch, Keeping It Simple, CraftOManiac, Homemaker on a Dime, The Girl Creative, DIY Home Sweet Home, Mad in Crafts, Polly Want A Crafter, Home Savvy, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Cherished Bliss, Confessions, Strictly Homemade, Sugar Bee Crafts, Someday Crafts, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Serenity Now, Thirty Days, The Crafty Nest, Five Days 5 Ways, Simply Designing, French Country Cottage, 504 Main, Chic on a Shoestring, While He Was Napping, Whipperberry, Addicted 2 Decorating, Tatertots & Jello, Lolly Jane

Ugly Duckling Table

The debrowning of my living room continues with another table redo. This ones a lot simpler than the last one and it's a table that's been sitting in our living room for awhile. And yes, its brown...how did you guess?

Here is the before picture...

 

Here is the conversation between me and my husband when he caught me starting to sand it..

Adam: "Still trying to save that table, eh?"

Me: "I just don't want to to be brown anymore"

Adam: "It doesn't matter what color it is, it'll still be an ugly table. Wait...you aren't going to put that on your blog are you?"

Me: "Of course, that's how it works. I do stuff and then I write about it."

Adam: "If post that you'll loose peoples respect and no one will read your blog anymore"

So to say the least, it's  not my husbands favorite table :)

It was free to us though and it's the right size, so it stays. Plus I don't think it's that bad. The wheat tile on the top is a little funky, but I can make it work.

Besides, Elijah loves it. He thinks it's great for climbing.

Don't worry, I set him straight.

When I took over sanding (I kinda wanted to finish this decade) I realized that A LOT of people have tried to save this table..

  I decided to sand the top down to the wood and stain it. Hmm, choices choices...Dark Walnut, English Chestnut or Red Chestnut? I went with English Chestnut (I didn't want it to be too dark or too red) and did three coats. 

I though about possibly maybe leaving it like this...  

but I really didn't like the red and decided that a crisp white would look better. 
Here is the finished product...and I don't know, I think I saved it. 

 Here it is in it's rightful place. I forgot to take a before pic of it here, but I'm sure you can imagine. 

So what say you? Is it the most horrific thing you've ever seen or do you think it's kinda cute?(It's okay to say it's the superbly ugly, you'll earn brownie points from the hubs.)

Linked to:My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, At Home With K, Vintage Wanna Bee, Sassy Sites!, Coastal Charm, Sugar Bee Crafts, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Topsy, Homework, Funky Polkadot Giraffe, Not Just A Houdewife, Confessions, Primitive & Proper, Savvy Southern Style, Domestically Speaking, Blue Cricket Design, The Thrifty Home, Creations by Kara, Someday Crafts, Shabby Creek Cottage, Fireflies & Jellybeans, House of Hepworths, Beyond the Picket Fence, Delightful Order, 504 Main, Shabby Nest, Miss Mustard Seed, Blissful & Domestic, French Country Cottage, delicateCONSTRUCTION, Bacon Time, 30 Days, Chic on a Shoestring, Whipperberry, Addicted 2 Decorating, Tatertots & Jello, Lolly Jane, Along for the Ride, Be Different Act Normal, Nifty Thrifty Things, I Heart Nap Time, CRAFT