Raise the Roof!

Or raise the curtain height in this case.  I have been starting at the curtains in my living room for a year and a half wishing they were longer and finally go around to matching up the fabric to do so.  This week I actually have 2 curtain projects to share with you but today's is the simpler of the two and thats adding length to a curtain. 

Here is a before shot of the living room (kitchen has the same curtains at the same height)

I decided that it would look better if the curtains were at the ceiling height so off to Joann's I went in search of a fabric match.  It was pretty hard to find an exact match but the color match was very very close.  The store associate actually made a great suggestion to add ribbon to the seam to try and make it look pretty seamless so I decided to go with that idea.  As a side note...none of this requires a sewing machine.  Arguably it would have been better if I had sewn it, but since I cant sew a straight line to save my life I figured hem tape would work better.  Below is after the curtain rods were taken down, and you can see what a big difference even sheers make to a window.  It looks so boring and bland, but with the curtains it brings more life into the home.  Dont get me wrong its cool if you dont want curtains, I just happen to prefer having them.

Here is what i started with...

 Thats the bottom of the curtain and the fabric that I used to make it longer.  First I measured with width of the original and cut the new fabric plus 1 inch on either side to match.  The 1 inch on either side is to make the hem so that the unfinished edges dont show.

 Here you can see the pinning of the hem.  What I do is first pin the hem, then iron over it so the hem stays down then I insert the hem tape between the fabric and the edge.  Make sure you read the instructions on the hem tape so you know how long to leave the heat on for.

 Here is a closer shot of the edges hemmed down.  Not the best shot but you get the idea.  I did the 1 inch hem on 3 edges to make sure there were not going to be any unfinished edges showing.

 Above is a better picture of all 3 edges hemmed and ready for the next step

 To attach the extra length put the original curtain face down and the new addition face up so they are back to back.  The white line you see at the bottom of the brown is the hem tape before I put it in between the 2 fabrics.  Once you have both fabrics as close to perfectly lined up as you can, put the hem tape between the 2 pieces of fabric and iron away.

 Once them hem tape has had about 1 minute to cool flip the extra length piece down and then iron at the seam to help it lay flat.  As an extra step I also flipped the curtain over and put a piece of them tape at the seam as well.  Since both fabrics were pretty heavy it helped to have the extra bonding to keep it from flopping around.  If you have a lighter fabric this wont be necessary.

Now for the decoration.  I have a hard time with straight lines so ribbon really is my best friend and helps me hide a host of problems.  Same is the case here, so I put hem tape on the curtain where I wanted the ribbon to go (aka cover up a mess haha), put the ribbon on top of that and ironed it all together.  Below you see the sheers have also magically grown in length as well...well I spent another 2 hours taking a seam ripper to them to make them longer.  These babies had like a 6 inch hem on them which was great because that meant I didnt have to add any length to them I just had to take the seam out.  Major score on that one.

All in all I had 4 curtains to do and it took about 3 hours to do all 4...and thats including distractions from the dog and the TV shows I was watching...oh and another 2 for the sheers.  Truth be told I am actually going to move these curtains to the kitchen with their sisters because i want to make a sheer valance for in here...but seeing as I used all my fabric allowance in here and the bedroom that will have to wait a few more weeks.  Oh and cost on this, the fabric was $13.50 for 3 yards, $5 for 2 spools of ribbon and $3 for 2 rolls of hem tape.  Total for this project of 4 curtains is $21.50.  Not bad considering you cant really buy a 100" length curtain for that price!

My back is killing me from all the sitting on the floor but I think its worth it, makes the room look taller and it was pretty cheap to do as well which always makes me happy.  Do you have curtains you like but would love to make longer?  Whats holding you back?!

Project Housewife Out!

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Chipping Away UPDATE

Remember when I posted this ugly chandlier and told you I would update you when I fixed it?  Well I fixed it and it looks much better yay!

It didnt take me nearly as long as I though it would so that was awesome!  I think I am actually going to make this available on my newly opened Etsy shop (nothing there yet, when I post something I will let yall know first!) but I have to hang this one first and make sure it can hold up.  What I did first was take all the strips down and glue the same paint chip color to the back of the original paint chip (see the top picture to understand that one).  I used scrapbook tape since its double sided, non-acidic and pretty sturdy so it will stay in place.  After I got all those paint chips on I started hot gluing them to the new frame my handy husband made.  This new frame, by the way is premade rings from hobby lobby that were soddered together with 18guage wire all 5inches long.  Sodering them together took all of 10minutes so that was easy too.

 This is 1/2 way around the frame and also gives you a shot of the frame so you can see better what it looks like.  Be careful of the hot glue I got a nasty burn on my finger from being too hasty :) 

 The finished product...sooo much better then this mess, all lopsided and ugly and able to see the paint chip backs.  Im going to hang this hopefully tonight and will post the hanging pretty version soon.  If you guys are interested in one for youself let me know so I can prepare how many to make.  Right now I have pink and yellow chips all punched ready to be made.  Which consequently is the most time consuming part of this whole project.  If you have a movie you have been wanting to watch, put it in, get out your whole punch and paint chips and go to town. 

Have you tried to make a paint swatch chandlier?  I would love to see how yours turned out!

Project Housewife Out!

Blooming Box

Today's project is a continuation of the pallet art I did last week.  I actually had 2 pallets and only used one for the project so I had a great idea to make a flower box.  I never really loved what I had for under the TV

And for a long time I have been thinking of doing flowers under the TV, I was just having a hard time finding the perfect container for the flowes.  I though of using a make travel trunk but they werent long enough, then I thought of using glass but that really wasnt the look I was going for and then the pallet art.  You can see the full article here.  Once the art was done I asked Joe my handy man husband to make me a flower box.  I wasnt thinking anything fancy, just four sides and a bottom but he decided to make it cute and give it an angle.  Now you have the back story, below is the finished project.  Ok to be honest, I have done MUCH more primping to this since I took this picture because lets be honest the green things are a little CRAZY but i was just so excited I had to share it with you!

Here is what you are going to need for this project:

• Wood (cut to your specifications, mine was 4" tall by 20" long)
• nails/hammer
• saw that can cut angles if you want the fancy box, otherwise just a regular saw
• paint, if you want
• flowers $30
• flower foam $5

Total cost for this project was $35 and that was just flowers and the flower foam, all the other items I had at the house!  How awesome, since this would cost over $100 at the store!!

First step is to cut the wood to your measurements.  Make sure you also cut a piece to fit into the bottom so you dont have the foam fall out if you pick up the box.  You can kinda see the angles here, but Joe actually had to redo this because the angles werent quite right, so not to preach to the choir or anything but measure twice, cut once.  Luckly we had plenty of wood to work with so no harm no foul.

Then nail all the pieces together.  I would nail the long pieces to the bottom piece first then close it off with the two smaller side pieces, but whatever you feel more comfortable with do that.  If you like the look of the wood and dont want to paint then skip this step, but if you want to whitewash your wood follow me to the next step :)

For this step you need your box, paint, water and a paint brush.  This is probably not the correct way to white wash but I like the way it turns out so this is the right way for us.  I had a gallon of white paint with about 1/4 left.  To get it the thin, whitw wash consistancy, we filled up the gallon with water about 3/4 full and then mixed the paint with the water. 

Now all you have to do is apply the paint to your project.  Easy peasy!  Let that sit overnight to make sure you dont get paint on anything then you can move on to the next step...adding the flowes!  Before you get started on the flowers, add the foam

Joe cut mine down a little so it fit perfectly in the box, if you did just a square box then you probably wont have to do this but with the angled box it does help to cut it do you have a perfect fit and it doesnt move around in the box. Once the foam is in start adding the flowers.  I bought bunches of blowers so I actually had to cut mine apart first into individual stems so if you bought bunches great, you probably saved money you just have to add one extra step.

 I added all my big flowers first then filled in the spaces with my smaller yellow fillers.

So what do you think, pretty easy right?!  Oh and I added a butterfly, because they are cute and I can so there!

I think it looks so much better than what I had before and it was pretty cheap too!  What do you think, is there somewhere you could put a cute little flower box?


**Update** I decided that I needed to show you the primped version of the box since the longer I look at the above picture the more I realize it doesnt do the box justice**

Much better right!
Project Housewife Out! 

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Chipping Away

Happy Hump Day to all of you out there!  It has been a slow week, and when I say slow I mean slower than a snail, its verging on ridiculous but on with todays project.  So you can see below its not super pretty or super straight or super anything.  This project is by no means a failure, but I can see that it does need a little extra work that I had not thought about.

So lets start with where this inspiration came from...Im sure you can guess it came from pinterest, and here is the link so you can check it out.  I saw this and thought it would look great over one of the lights in my hallway going up to the media room.  For the example it looks like they used a small frame and I needed it to fit over a light so I bought some floral 10 guage wire and made my own form.  This was the first misstep because this floral wire doesnt hold up when it is sodered together.  I am going to have to make a new frame but that shouldnt be too hard.  I made 2 frames on big enough to fit over the light and another smaller to fit down the middle to make a layer for the "chandelier".

The circles arent perfect but I figured they would work.  So on to the paint chips.  I always go to Home Depot for my paint because I love Behr and the selection they have.  So I got a whole bunch of paint chips in purple.  What I love about Behr is there are 3-4 colors on the sheet so you can see how the color gets darker in color which is perfect from the ombre for this mock chandelier.

 I cut each strip apart (as shown below) so I could get the punch where I needed it to go to get the most out of the strip

So to cut the circles I used a whole punch from Michaels scrapbook section.  I think this one is a 1/2 inch but I cant remember.  I was able to get 3 punches from each strip so that was excellent.  I had to take the back off the punch so the holes would fall right out rather than stay in the plastic holder so I could see where I was punching to maxamize the punch, yes Im a little crazy but I think we all know that by now!  After I cut all the holes out I seperated them into baggies so I wouldnt get the colors mixed up (I did one color at a time also to not get them mixed up).  The I was ready to move on to phase 3...follow me this way :)

So this was the dumbest idea I had and will fix this too when I do my redo, but I decided it would be best to use string to connect each circle.  When I do the redo I will use metal sticks to make sure its even and not lopsided like this mess here.  But I used string on 4 sides and was ready for the next step.

I used a flat surface to line up all the paint chips in the order or color that I wanted (2 of each color)

The I flipped them over

Using tape and upholstry thread (because thats what I have in the house dont judge!) and taped the thread to the backs of the chips leaving enough string to tie the chips to the metal frame.

You can kinda see the string a tape better in this picture.  I did about 20 of these and was ready for the last phase...attachment.

I decided to hot glue these to the frame to make sure they dont swing around and show the backs, which started out as good idea as I did the bottom section.

See the hot glue here.

But as I made my way around, I noticed the biggest error which no hot glue can save me from...you can still see the backs because the circle is so big.  The hot glue worked great as was a fantastic idea, but since you can still see the backs I am going to have to take them all down and attach another paint chip of the same color to the back so it looks amazing no matter what.  I will give you and update when I have enough patience to get this going again. 

Now you go try this at home, trust me it was harder than I thought but I am sure once I make some adjustments its going to be awesome!!  What do you think, any suggestions on how to make this better?

Project Housewife Out!