Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Redecorating the Girls' Bedroom-Part 2

Pinterest has given me a lot of great ideas.  I had to narrow those down to projects that I was capable of and to things that would be possible in the room.  I came up with a few things that seemed easy enough that I thought would bring some character to the room.  The first one was the scrapbook banner.  I picked out a bunch of scrapbook paper that followed the blue and pink color theme and found some pink ribbon.  I made a triangle stencil to cut out the scrapbook paper and then just glued the triangles onto the ribbon.  It was very easy and I think it's pretty cute for how cheap and simple it was!

The second project was curtains.  I was going back and forth about buying curtains or making them.  I knew that sewing was out of the question.  I have no sewing machine and absolutely no talent in that area.  Luckily, in searching through Pinterest I found a great website on how to make curtains with hem tape.  No needle and thread was exactly what I needed.  I couldn't find cute store-bought curtains that I liked and had the right feel to them.  I finally found some fabric that was cheap enough to make it worth it to make them myself and I that I actually liked.  At the fabric store I almost bought way too much fabric because I was counting feet instead of yards.  The lady who cut the fabric for me was very nice and helpful when I told her that it was my first true adventure with fabric and that I couldn't even sew on a button.  The lady at the register, however, gave me a somewhat sarcastic, "Good luck!"  Thanks, lady.  Way to boost my confidence!
So I cut my fabric in half to make the two panels and thanks to the advice of the first lady at the store, I just had to hem the top and the bottom.  (The sides are made not to fray and they were already straight)  The challenging part was cutting the top and bottom so that I could make them straight and even with each other.  I laid the fabric on the ground and got the tape measure and started stressing out.  Justin came in and said to just measure the two sides so that they were the same and the top and bottom the same.  This would make a rectangle.  This is where the math teacher in me was actually quite helpful.  Two pairs of congruent sides makes a parallelogram.  I did not want parallelogram shaped curtains.  I wanted rectangles.  So, I had to make 90 degree angles!  I think I finally made my two panels just about even, so the hemming began.

I ironed on the hem tape according to the directions and it actually turned out to be pretty easy once I got my system down and it didn't look half bad!  Of course, when we hung the curtains they weren't exactly even.  Justin tells me it's because the floor isn't quite level, but I have a feeling it was really my fault.  Overall, I was pretty happy with the end result and glad I chose to make the curtains instead of buying them.

It was difficult to get good pictures of the curtains because of the light coming through the window.  Those little boxes are ottomans that the girls can sit on and part of the solution to the whole "two-girls-sharing-the-same-room-with-limited-storage" problem.  My original intent was to buy/make a nice storage bench, but that will have to wait until we have more time/money. For now, these boxes are perfect.  
 I'm also very happy to have the horizontal blinds instead of the vertical blinds.  They are just more practical when the window opens horizontally. 


I'm hoping to get some more things done in the room the next few weeks.  However, my to-do list is a mile long and my energy level is not keeping up.