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The Story Behind The Handmade Shower Curtain

The Story Behind The Handmade Shower Curtain

Long before I knew how to sew, I would go over to my best friend Lizzy’s house and be in awe of the way she decorated her home.

Her Mom was an interior decorator and could put together fabrics, furniture and statement pieces that no one would ever guess would work together. Her Mom has since passed away, but she instilled a great sense of style in Liz.

I am still in awe when I visit her home.

Not only does Liz have a magnificent home but she has sewn many of the pieces.

One thing I will never forget is the day I visited her house and, well, needed to use her restroom.

In her downstairs guest bathroom, hanging from a heavy gold shower rod was a large white with green ivy shower curtain. (Ivy was all the rage back then. ) 🙂

It was perfect with the rest of the decor in her bathroom and I asked her where she had bought it.

She told me she had made it!!

What? Are you kidding me? Who does that!

I was amazed.  You never would’ve guessed it was not store purchased.

I remember telling her that I would never be able to sew. I just didn’t have those kinds of skills.

She lovingly laughed at me.

So yesterday my Oprah “Ah-ha” moment happened and….you guessed it, I made my own shower curtain.

We, and by we I mean Wade, haven’t found the time to repaint the tub/shower/toliet room off of the bathroom.

So in the meantime, I made a shower curtain to pull everything together.

I bought these two fabrics from Walmart. I thought they looked kind of Pottery Barn-ish.

I measured out the fabric, sewed a two inch hem on the top and a one inch hem on the bottom, added 12 grommets for the curtain hooks and called it a day.

But then I had a problem.

You probably already noticed it.

Yep, the shower curtain did not play well with the window curtain.

Without a second of hesitation, I pulled that baby down and whipped up another curtain using the same fabric from the bottom section of the shower curtain.

Problem solved.

I apologize for not having a “full” picture of that room, but without busting out a wall or buying a new fancy dancy camera lens, this is as much view of the curtains as I could get.

I feel so accomplished now that I have made a custom curtain.

Thanks Lizzy for knowing that it was only a matter of time (or almost 20 years) before I would conquer “The Shower Curtain.”

~Wendy

 

Best Day Ever – Spring Break 2017

Best Day Ever – Spring Break 2017

We had another Best Day Ever on Spring Break last week.

Sam spent her break with us and we checked a few more items off of the wedding To-Do list.

The reality that our little girl is all grown up and getting married is really starting to sink in.

I know, I know, she and Justin, her fiancé, have dated for over six years and have been engaged for almost a year already so I knew this was coming.

But when you are editing pictures and you notice in a close up shot, that she still holds her pencil the same way that she did when she was little, it becomes real.

Just a second, I have to go and blow my nose.

I am going to be such a mess on her wedding day. 🙂

Okay, let’s move on.

Besides visiting her wedding venue and playing with some different table arrangements, we worked on the photo booth background.

Sam found an app, DIY Booth Lite, that we put on an iPad. The iPad will be strategically placed and centered using this as our background.

From there anyone can make a fun photo strip of pictures using the app and send it to their phone. Even better, Sam and Justin will have a set for themselves on the iPad.

We used the black frame that I use to hold the backgrounds for photos. However a customized background was well over $50.

Not in Sam’s budget, so what does a crafty Mother and Daughter team do?

You guessed it. We made it ourselves.

We bought a 6’x9’ drop cloth from Walmart for $6.99 and I already had the paint, the fabric medium, the large letter stencils and a cheap craft paint brush.

If you did need to purchase all of those things, it would be about $10-$15.

The saying, Best Day Ever was laid out on the drop cloth and traced.

Then each letter was painted.

We wanted the effect to look like a huge old fashioned typewriter had imprinted the fabric.

Sam added her wedding date by freehand. (The girl has skills.)

Since Sam was little, when she is really happy about something, she does a little wiggle dance.

When we finished the backdrop, she wiggle danced.

Here’s wishing all of you a wiggly Best Day Ever Spring Break!

~Wendy

Updating A Picture Frame While Dipping My Toes Back Into The DIY Pool

Updating A Picture Frame While Dipping My Toes Back Into The DIY Pool

Getting back into the swing of things after a vacation was tricky. Updating a picture frame while I dipped my toe into the DIY pool with this quickie guest bedroom project was not.

The blankness of the wall behind the bed in the guest bedroom has been so, well….blank.

I was struggling with a piece to put there taking into consideration the angle of the wall on the left.

Then the solution to this blank wall problem had been staring me in the face all along.

This metal piece would be perfect above the bed.

So I hammered in a nail and bam, problem solved.

Now if you are saying to yourself….okay Wendy, that’s fine and dandy, but now you need something above the loveseat, you’d be right.

I bought this peel and stick wallpaper awhile back from Target. It was kind of pricey. $30 for a 27.5 square foot area.  My intentions were to paper the short wall in the guest bedroom and then I decided instead I would paper the wall in the bathroom.

But something besides the price was holding me back from using it.

That something was the fact that I have never used peel and stick wallpaper. The directions suggested that you have two people work together to apply it.

99% of the time, I am doing these DIY projects by myself.

I figured that if it takes two people to wallpaper, it would only take one person to wallpaper a 16×20 inch piece of cardboard.

My brilliance comes in waves.  🙂

I collected the rest of the supplies that I had randomly picked up here and there and they all came together for this quickie project.

Wade and I bought this 16×20 inch wood frame for $5.00 at an estate sale last fall.

I found this Dream applique at Menards a couple of weeks ago, on sale for $3.83.

I cut down a piece of ÂĽ inch cardboard to fill in the 16×20 frame opening. Then I cut a piece of the wallpaper a little bigger than that so it was a workable size and not too cumbersome.

Ready for how easy this was?

I peeled off the backing of the paper, applied it to the cardboard and cut off any excess.

Then I peeled of the word Dream and applied it to the wallpaper.

The finished piece fit snuggly into the frame so I didn’t need to glue, nail or attach it in any other way.

The nail was still there from the metal piece so three seconds later, bam, another problem solved.

 

What do you think?

~Wendy

P.S. A small piece of this paper was easy to use. However, I cannot imagine wallpapering with large sections of paper. It definitely would take two people who are very patient and much more experienced with peel and stick wallpaper.

Waiting For Paint To Dry Leaves Enough Time To Try Something New

Waiting For Paint To Dry Leaves Enough Time To Try Something New

While I was waiting for the paint to dry on our little desk, I wanted to think of a birthday present for my friend Alyssa.

Her husband Tim was throwing her a surprise 30th birthday party, and I wanted to make her something unique. (Don’t worry, the party was on the 11th, so I’m not ruining the surprise.)

Anyway, Alyssa has such a strong faith and love of family, that I thought she might enjoy a handmade picture frame with a picture of her two boys.

I had just enough leftover wood from making the frame around the bathroom mirror to make a picture frame.

First, I needed a picture of the boys. Every Christmas I take a picture of them by this Santa who stands by our front door. It’s fun to see how much they change from year to year.

Plus last summer when Wade and I went to Atlanta for the blogging conference, I got this jig kit from Kreg. I have been wanting to try my hand at using it and figured I would start small with a picture frame.

I wanted to paint the frame white so, I changed the current photo from colored to black and white using the handy-dandy PicMonkey editing tool.

I printed the picture itself to be 3 ½ x 4 ¼ inch. With that dimension, I wanted a one inch border around the picture. That makes the inside of the frame 4 ½ x 5 ¼ inches.

Now that all of the dimensions were calculated, it was time for cutting.

Using “measure twice cut once” as a rule of thumb, I cut the four sides of the frame using my miter saw with the laser beam.

From here, I set up the jig to drill the holes for the screws which hold everything together.

The tricky part about this was the set up. But fortunately Wade was home to help me read all of the directions and attach it correctly.  Truth be told, it wasn’t that tricky, it just took some patience, something I am always short on.

Using my drill with a bit that is supplied in the kit, a quick back and forth motion created the spot where the screw is inserted to attach the two pieces.

I wish I could tell you that this frame turned out A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.!!

But yeah, no, it wasn’t perfect. In fact it wasn’t even close enough.

However, it does look really cute in my barn red cabinet.

Round two will be better suited for a birthday gift.  🙂

~Wendy

I Seem To Have Established A Pattern: Thursday Is Now Known as Reveal Day

I Seem To Have Established A Pattern: Thursday Is Now Known as Reveal Day

I seem to have established a pattern.

For whatever reason, Thursday’s have morphed into the unofficial “Reveal Day” on the blog.

So as not to disappoint, here is the reveal on the desk I promised.

This is  where we started:

Then as I shared earlier, this is where we left off: (Click here for that story.)

From here, all of my plans to leave the top as is, flew out the window! You see, I didn’t love the aged gray paint color with the faux/cherry redwood shiny plastic looking top.

My first instinct was to sand the top down and stain it. But as I started to sand in one little spot on the corner, the wood underneath was….well let’s just say it wasn’t going to work.

My next thought was to paint it white. And then I painted it black. I wish I had some super cool, artsy reason, but no, I just grabbed a can of leftover black paint instead.

The legs and the top are both a chalky paint. The black is the same paint I used on this project and this project.

Although I did paint a second coat on the legs, one coat of paint without a bonding agent did the trick on the top!

Knowing that this desk would get a lot of use,  I did add Miss Mustard Seeds Top Coat to protect the finish.

The desk is ready for paperwork and tax preparation!

Now I need to get ready. Ugh, taxes.  🙂

~Wendy

Jump Right In And See What Happens

Jump Right In And See What Happens

Usually I am a “jump right in and see what happens” kind of person. Reading every word of directions is not something that I do very often.

I skim over them, look at pictures and then jump.

So, with the project of painting our king size bed frame, looming in the near future, I decided that maybe I should at least practice with a similar looking piece we have in our house and see how it turns out.

That practice piece was this desk that sits in the loft bedroom.

Although it looks kind of fancy, it is not. I bought this piece off of Craigslist for $20. The family that was selling it had it listed for quite a while and they needed this piece gone so they didn’t have to move it.

Lucky me.

There is nothing wrong with the desk. It is sturdy and almost scratch free. However it is a very bright and shiny red wood, not to be confused with redwood, and it needed to calm down. (If you are wondering, that isn’t a drawer. The handle on the front is decorative.)

I chose this paint from Rustoleum in the color Aged Gray.

You can see on the front of the can that this chalked paint can be applied to a variety of surfaces.

I took that to mean that it would stick to whatever I put it on, no sanding necessary. That was the selling point I was looking for since I would be working on this piece inside.

I also took a chance and didn’t add any bonding agent. You think I would’ve learned from a previous mistake, but remember the “jump right in…” thing I like to do, well, I jumped right in.

I flipped the table onto it’s top and painted the legs and underneath side first. Where the desk sits now, you can see under it, so that’s why I painted it. Typically I wouldn’t.

After this dries, I will see if I need a second coat or have to start all over and add bonding agent.

I’m thinking I may leave the top as it is. Not painting the top and leaving the exposed wood seems to be a happening trend.

Jump on back here on Thursday for the reveal.

~Wendy