New Bedroom Curtains

I've been planning on sewing curtains for my bedroom since we moved into this house.  But, being the horrible procrastinator that I am, and being so terrible at making decisions... it took me a while to get around to it. :)

But, I finally found some fabric that I liked and decided to just go ahead and DO IT!

My fabric choices were inspired by Amy Butler
and Anna Maria Horner's designs.
I couldn't afford to buy fabric that actually has their names printed on it... but I found some sort of imitation stuff at Wal-Mart. :) and this is what I came up with.

                                                                 Loops and Tiebacks.

                                                     And a few matching pillows for fun.

Painting the Kitchen Red

"So, you're Renee's daughters?"
We sat at a table, stitching (and ripping) mermaid costumes and making small talk with homeschool moms and daughters.
"Yes!" we're happy enough to admit
"And you're the oldest 3?"
"Yes, we are"
"So, how do you girls like living on your own?"
"We like it a lot"
"Didn't you paint your kitchen red?"

so, the truth comes out... this is what my mom tells her friends. 'My daughters moved away from home. They painted their kitchen red'
"Ummm... yeah (a little sheepishly) we did..."
Homeschool mom laughs. "My daughters moved out on their own... they painted their kitchen red too!"

AH.... so it's a trend...

It's all quite funny, really. It's not as if we're doing anything truly crazy. Painting the kitchen red is not at all symbolic. There are no allusions toward painting the town red. It's just the kitchen. That's all.

We're just young, and we're trendy (sort of)....

Fabric Wall Art

What you need:

An appropriate size wooden frame. You can make your own or buy a pre-made one. I got these frames with cheap paper stapled on in a clearance aisle for $6/ea. Mine are 16"x20"

Scissors

Fabric of your choice
Hammer and Nails

Staple Gun
Lay the fabric fashion side down on the ground and position your frame over top of it, making sure everything lines up and the design on your fabric isn't crooked. Trim off excess fabric, leaving enough to pull over side of frame and turn under to leave a finished edge. Staple the fabric onto the frame upholstery style, starting in the center of one side, stapling, and then pulling taut on the other side and stapling directly opposite your first staple. Turn it over to check that there is no puckering and that everything lines up. Keep doing this until all the sides are stapled.

• Note: Get a friend to help. 4 hands work best, and 6 come in handy sometimes, too!

For the corners, you can really do it any way that you are comfortable with. This is what I did.
I hope the picture makes sense. I folded the triangle part of the fabric in towards the center so that the triangle pointed directly to the center of the frame. I stapled that down, cut off the excess fabric and folded in the sides, nice and tight and stapled them down too.

I decided to embellish one of my frames with some ribbon

I chose some ribbon and decided how I wanted them to look on the frame

Measured

Pinned them down
Stretched tight and folded the ends under and stapled down

Finished Product!!! It's just my kind of project: simple and different, you can pick whatever colors you want, and I did all three in about 2 hours start to finish (including shopping) and for less than $8/ea.Special Thanks to Steph, who was my extra 2 hands, went shopping with me and just generally is really handy to have around since she knows how to use a staple gun, and can hang things on the wall straight the first time.

And Katie, for jumping up in the middle of your important computer work to play with the camera and take pictures!

New Chairs

We found these fabulous used chairs at a store on Main St. that is going out of business. Steph and I saw them and planned to ask the owner if she would sell them... depending on the price :-) we were thinking about buying them.

What we didn't know was Dad saw the same chairs and asked the owner if she'd sell them. She sold them to him and later that day we found them at Mom and Dad's house. :-)

When Dad found out we were planning to buy them he said we could have them. So, here they are... $20/ea!!!!!!!Our house looks less "College Dorm-ish" already and we finally have some decent seating.
And for a bonus... they match our living room perfectly!

White Pine

I think White Pine is beautiful... And when fresh flowers aren't available...

Bedroom

I bought this awesome wall sculpture at Hobby Lobby this weekend. They were having an incredible sale!!! Can you believe I got this for $20!?!

Here it is lit up... I just couldn't resist putting some twinkle lights around it.

Also, here's a shot of my bedroom colors...

This might be a little redundant...

But I couldn't pass up this cute sign.

in my kitchen...

Living Room

Here is my ugly carpet.

Since replacing or tearing it up is not an option we had to work with it.

A lot of our living room furniture is black... And we also had a lot of burgundy things.We covered the rocking chair with the burgundy.

Made some pillows... (yes, I know there are still pins in that pillow...) Actually, it all turned out pretty cute!

Katie also made this darling curtain for the front door. Here's some closeup detail.

more house pictures

Bathroom

Sisters

Piano

My kitchen

Steph helped me remove the cabinet doors above the sink so we could have a shelf for cute things
Teeny-tiny stove

Baker's Rack