Blinging up your cheap curtains

Okay so blinging might not be the right word for what I did, there are no rhinestones or glitter on my curtains (that would not be cute), but I did take some cheap 10 dollar Target curtains and jazz them up a bit and this is how I did it:
After looking at way more expensive curtain options for my very NON-permanent living space I realized that just some cheapo plain Jane curtains at Target would suffice and be the most practical option for us at this time.  The problem is, I can't ever leave really plain things alone, I always have the desire to jazz them up.  So I decided to buy some fabric that matched my living room and do some jazzing.

1) I cut a strip of fabric wide enough and long enough to cover the bottom of each panel (I think I purchased 3/4 of a yard and that was plenty to cover the bottom of my curtains).

2) I then folded the top end of the fabric under to give it a more finished edge and pinned and then with the other edges I tucked them around the edges of the curtains and pinned.

3) I then sewed about a quarter of an inch around the entire parameter of the fabric to secure it to the curtain and then ironed it to give it a nice finished touch.

4) And then I was done.  Easy as pie I tell you... actually I dare say it was easier than pie!

Framed Decorations

I'm not exactly sure of the technical term for this framed 3D art that I keep seeing on pinterest, but I thought I would try it out myself.  This is a very inexpensive decoration to create, especially if you have scrap paper lying around.  The first framed decoration I made was for our entryway.

I had the little house paper punch already and I found paper that matched the colors of our living room.  To make the houses 3D, I used double sided foam tape strips you can buy at any craft store.  I recommend getting the frames from DI or the dollar store and paint it the color you want.  I popped out the glass, traced the background paper to be the same size and then created the design I wanted.  I'd say the hardest part of this craft is trying to get all the houses evenly spaced.

I decided to make another decoration similar to this for Valentine's Day...

I used the same method, but this time I used stencils for the different shapes and just cut it out.  As my 3-year-old nephew would say, Easy Peasy.

Using books to decorate

After Christmas I was trying to clear away some books from our bookshelf to make room for the new toys (a classy addition to the bookshelf, I know). After taking a box of books out to the garage I was still left with quite a bit. So I decided to take the best looking books/photo albums and use them as decoration in different parts of the house. Pottery Barn is always using books to decorate, so why couldn't I?

DIY Garden Lampshade

So here is the shpeal... I saw this garden lampshade at Anthropologie and loved it and was inspired from it... I had a plain cream cloth lampshade at home and I thought...hmmmm... I could spruce it up a bit... and so I called my friend Dani and begged for her help since craft stores scare me and I don't know what to do when I go into one... so she came with me, and this is what we came up with... we used the cheapest material we could find... felt... and we bought a few squares of different colors... some green yarn (she already had some yellow), and she already had a glue gun and a sewing machine so we were set there... and we went to town... in this manner...

1st we cut out flower shapes... the perfect circle flowers were done with my friend Dani's various sizes of dye cuts, but we free-handed the spiky flowers and the leaves, and the middles of the flowers were either knotted strips of felt we glued on or knotted pieces of yarn.  Some flowers we tried to make 3 dimensional by bunching them in the middle, some flowers we sewed detail on (and same with the leaves) and we sewed at least a tack in the middle of each flower to hold them together... and you probably get the idea...

 The perfectly good and nice lampshade before we glued the heck out of it...

 This is the manner in which we designed what the lampshade would look like... we measured the height and circumference and then mimicked that on the floor and made our design. We also ate m & m's to help us think better... highly recommended...

 We then glued our first flower... and got confident and glued the rest...

We then used spray adhesive to spray pieces of yarn to make the stems... this was the hardest part because it stuck to our hands so bad but we managed and it worked!
And this is the finished project posing on Dani's cute lamp...

 A close up of some of the detail...

And the lampshade resting on its rightful stand in my house...

And thats it! It only takes 6 hours! HAHA... which is a LONG time... but its worth it... you initially will have gluers remorse because it was a perfectly nice lampshade without all the flowers on it, but then you will start to love it because its funky and fun and gives your room pop.  Anyway, give it a try, copy it if you like or you don't have to like it at all... just thought I'd share (most the pictures are courtesy of Dani's camera).

Thanksgiving Pillows

I've always wanted interchangeable holiday pillows, but I hate to spend money so I decided to use things I already had to make some Thanksgiving pillows.
Tip: When you're making a pillow cover, make it about 1" smaller than the actual pillow (ie. for a 17"x17" pillow, make your cover 16"x16"). This ensures it won't look flat or under-stuffed.

Turkey PillowI cut out all the pieces, then used iron-on transfer adhesive to stick the pieces to the pillow. Then, I sewed around everything so that it wouldn't peel away at all. After that, I used embroidery thread to add the eyes, mouth and feet. Then, I sewed the pillow together.

Thanks PillowI used my Cricut to cut out the letters, but you could easily cut them out by hand or find a font on your computer to trace. I used the same iron-on transfer adhesive and then sewed around the letters.

Striped PillowI wanted to pull all the fabrics together with this pillow, so I just used different widths of each fabric and sewed them together.

For all the pillows, I used buttons and button-holes on the back so that I can easily take the covers off when the holiday is over and replace them with new covers. Plus, buttons are way easier than a zipper in my opinion.