Top Posts of 2012

My top 2012 posts are as follows:

DIY Burlap Wedding Shower Invite

Red Envelope Knock-off Artwork

Craft Room Reveal

Chevron Curtains

And my most popular post of 2012 is my DIY Pouf

I can't wait to share my projects in 2013! Happy 2013 to everyone and thanks for reading!!

Using Grommet Math to Add Grommets to your Cutains!

Nothing sounds more nerve racking than spending so much time sewing curtains only to cut huge holes in them for Grommets!! But I love the look of Grommets and I think they are easier to open and close especially if you have a bulkier fabric and they lay a bit better on the rods.


After spending hours and hours sewing curtains for my son's room that I lined with black out fabric, I was then tasked with cutting holes in my beautiful curtains for the grommets!

Adding grommets to your curtains are very easy. Besides grommets you really only need a scissors, pencil, ruler and a calculator.

Grommet Math 101

I personally think one of the hardest parts to adding grommets to curtains is figuring out the math! (And I love math!!!)

The first step is to measure the width of your curtain and determine how many grommets you want to use. My packet came with 8 grommets, but since my curtains were only 50.25 inches wide I decided to make my life easier and only use 6 of them.

Time for some grommet math!!!!

1. Measure the width of your curtain and determine the number of grommets you will be using.
2. Determine how far from the edge you want your first and last grommet to be. I ended up putting mine 2.5 inches from the end (from the center) This number is up to you and you can sort of play around with it and the next steps to make your middle spacing work out for you! You probably don't want to go any closer than 2 inches (from the center of the grommet) to about half of your spacing for your below spacing, so they hang correctly. In my case my spacing was a little over 9 inches, so I would not want my grommets to be more than 4.5 inches from the edge so it folds nicely)
3. Next subtract the end amount from your total curtain width. (5 in my case)
4.  Now take this number and divide it by the number of grommets you are using minus 1. (Because you want the inches between each grommet)
5. This is how far apart your grommets should be.

A helpful way to figure out even spacing number for your grommets is to divide your total curtain length by your grommets minus 1. In my case I get 10.05. This gives you an idea on how far apart they will need to be so you can play around with your numbers to get something that works out well and makes measuring easy!

Once you have the math figured out, it's best to layout your grommets and make sure the math will REALLY work!!

Once you have the math figured out, it's time to measure!

Packages of grommets should come with directions and a circle template. In my case I had to cut out the circle and mark the center myself on my template. 

My grommets I bought over a year ago on clearance and have since used a newer package and it came with a better template!! Marking the center makes it easier to line up your template!

The you simply line up the center of the template to your measurement and draw your circle on the fabric.

Next is the difficult part.... cutting your beautiful fabric.... it's so difficult to make that first cut!!!! Emotionally that is! It's better to make the hole small and if you need to you can always remove more.... you can't add back more fabric..... 

The hole..... it won't look pretty at this point, especially since my curtains had about 6 layers at the top with the liner!! 

Place the grommet in according to the directions of the package, but they should just snap together... SO EASY!!! 

And you are done!!!! 

Repeat several more times and then its off to hang your lovely new curtains!!! Again, here are the finished hanging curtains!

Chevron Lined Black Out Curtains

I could not find curtains I liked for Little Man's new big boy room, so I sewed my own!! AND since his room is East facing they needed to be blackout curtains!!

So here we have my first time sewing lined curtains!

I also saved some money with these curtains. Little Man's nursery is accented with Silver Sage from Restoration Hardware Baby & Child and it seemed like they were clearing out the color from their nursery lines, I did what any sane person would do!!!! I bought two 94 inch canvas curtains in Silver Sage that were lined with blackout liners for a reality inexpensive price. I planned on using the fabric for many things.... well I am pretty sure I have had the curtains for over a year and didn't touch them until I spent time seem ripping them apart for the blackout lining.....  now I just need to find the time and energy to use the silver sage canvas.....

Assembling the curtains with the liner was pretty easy, the blackout liner is just heavy so its a lot of fabric to work with!

1. Finish the bottom edge of your patterned fabric. I made mine 2 inches wide.
2. Since I was reusing blackout lining, I did not have to finish the bottom edge of my blackout lining, but if you are using new blackout fabric you should do that now! 
3. Pin the right side of the patterned curtain to the right side of the blackout curtain. Your blackout linning will be a few inches shorter than your decorative fabric.
4. Sew the first side together.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the other long side.
6. Flip your curtain so it is now right side out.
7. You should now have some over lap on the backside of your curtains of the patterned fabric. You may want to iron this edge now.
8. Sew your top edge. I made mine 3.5 inches wide.
9. Determine how you will hang your curtains, in my case I used grommets, so I then installed my grommets.
10 Hang and enjoy!!!! 

Little Man's new curtains in his room!!! Look at all of the light the grommets allow you to have when they easily open!

AND look how they actually do block out the light from outside!!!

Little Man's new big boy room is taking shape!!!! I am so excited for it to be done!

My first Zipper Project

A few weeks ago I posted about my zipper fails, but I never posted my final project!

I am NOT going to even post a how to make a little make up bag like this!!!! If you want to make one check out Pinterest, there are lots of great ideas on there!!

Because after all remember how this was a major fail sewing in the zipper!!! 

BUT I was happy with how it turned out. I gave this to my sister for her birthday and asked for an update if it was holding up, but she said she had not used it yet. So hopefully it holds up for her!!

I love gray and yellow together and this fun yellow pattern seemed like the perfect pattern for the inside of this little chevron printed pouch!

I have to admit I am sort of excited to give the zipper a second chance.... when I every have time!!! Even though this took WAY longer than it should have, I am so happy with how it turned out!!

Chevron Curtains

I finally finished my Chevron Gray and White curtains!!! I was so intimidated for the longest time, so I was afraid to start them (sort of like the 2 chairs I have in my garage that needs to be re-upholstered.)

This is my lovely Target lamp and the shade I covered with left over material from my pouf! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the lamp and base combo! I love that mustard yellow color!!!! The curtains were not hard to sew, but they intimidated me, and once I got past that, they were easy!!!! (It's just sewing 4 straight lines with the top and bottom a bit wider than the sides) I also took great effort to make sure that if they were pulled shut the pattern would match up between the two panels.

I spray painted some black grommets I purchased on sale white since I thought the black would stick out too much. They were very easy to paint and look great!!
I love how light and flowy they are compared to the brown curtains that were there before. I am glad I finally got over the intimidation of finishing these and actually finished them!! Now to actually start those 2 chairs that are in my garage. When I actually find the time I know I can do it after my last few projects!

Easy Scrabble Artwork

I LOVE easy art work projects!! How many people scored these cute red frames from Target after Valentines Day like me for $2.49 a piece! I ended up getting 5... see my previous post about being a craft hoarder...

The mat is a bit girly / Valentines Day, so I simply flipped them over and used the white back side!

Then I cut pieces from my Target dish towels that I hoarded previously.
Taped them down... and put them back in the frames!
I then used pieces from my thrift-ed Scrabble game to create the words create, dream, live. I used glue dots to glue them to the outside glass.

Easy 5 minute art work!!! MY favorite kind!!

My last 2 red frames I just hung cute pictures of little man in! I added my scrabble artwork I made for Valentines Day with the word love! I also covered the lamp shade with that same Target dish towel!! I LOVE the patterns of these two target dish towels!! So inspiring for other projects around the house!!

From dish towels to pillow in 5 minutes....

Thursday night when I was having craft fail after craft fail I needed a project that I knew I could not mess up on.... a few weeks ago at Target I picked up two of these awesome dish towels - I was not sure what I would use them for but I knew they would not be used in the kitchen...

I folded the dish towel in half and cut a bit off of the bottom - I wanted a smaller pillow - I then sewed the pillow leaving room for stuffing! It took 5 minutes and it turned out EXACTLY how I planned!! The colors match my craft room perfectly so I thought it would be a nice pillow to keep on my chair for my hour and hours of crafting!
When Little Man found this pillow he instantly thought it was for him and moved it into his room and curled up with it and his blanket... so I might have to make him another small Little Man sized pillow!

Sewed Ribbon Chevron Pillow

I added to my home decor my first chevron piece! I created a chevron pillow with fabric and white grosgrain ribbon and I love how it turned out!

I was not sure how long this would take to make and it was my second project with my new sewing machine that I am still trying to figure out. It took less than 2 hours and would have taken less had I not had issues with my sewing machine (still not sure if its the machine or user error :) )

My pillow ended up being a 16 x 16 inch square pillow.

I first started by measuring and marking my ribbon every 4 inches, to account for the seam allowance I did the first one in 4.25 inches - which I really would not have had to do, but I did. (Do you like my snowman PJs in the picture :) )



I decided to sew the ribbon every 2 inches for a total of 8 rows.

For my first row I used tape to mark the top and to mark the bottom (I added an extra .5 inches on the bottom again for seam allowance.) For the remaining rows I did not use the tape as it was not necessary and made the edges tear a bit.


Originally with adding the tape I thought I would not have to pin the ribbon, but after I started putting it together I found the tape was not needed, but the pins were a must! Much easier!




Time to sew! I sewed right down the middle of the ribbon (or as close to center as possible! - I'm a new sewer!!)




For the second plus rows, I used my acrylic ruler and placed it 2 inches above the starting point of the first line and sort of eyeballed where the ribbon should go, using the first row for the bottom points. I found it worked best to pin a row and sew it before pinning the next row.




More sewing! I found the easiest way to sew the angle change was to make sure the needle was down in the fabric, lift the foot up and turn the fabric with the needle down in the fabric. I am sure this is a basic sewing concept, but I am a new sewer!



8 rows later, the front of the pillow is complete!




I then sewed a basic envelope pillow.




Finished product! Love it in person!!


It looks great in my master bedroom. Here it's sitting on top of the first pillows I made with my new sewing machine. I might make too many pillows.... can you have too many pillows?