Twin Storage Bed

 Can you believe we finally finished the bed? Hooray!
And hooray that she loves it and is sleeping in it just as well as she did with her crib!
Double hooray for the storage under the bed. Right now we're only using one side because we have to push it against the wall while she learns not to fall out of bed, but eventually there will be enough room for 6 of these bins on each side! Woot!

 My little girl loves her letter "E" for her name, so I added that on using my Silhouette and cheap vinyl from Roberts (only $1.99/ft plus you can use your 40% off coupon, so it's way cheap!)

Thanks to Ana White for the plans and to JCPenney for the cute bedding! I love it. Oh, and the storage bins were from Target. Yea!

Kid's Artwork Display

 I have a confession... I am a terrible mother who throws away pretty much everything my kids make because I can't stand the clutter. I have kept a few choice peices, but most of the time it goes straight in the garbage can after they're in bed.
I realized this was a problem when I asked them what they were drawing one day and they said, "A picture. But it's for grandma because she doesn't throw them away."
Ouch.
I really want to encourage my children to be creative and express themselves. I want them to develop their talents. Most of all, I want them to know that I value who they are and the things they do.
So we needed a solution. A place to showcase their artwork without clutter taking up my house.
And here we are.  A peice of wood and some clothespins. Brilliant.

See these adorable clothespins? Perfect for pinching fingers.

 Here it is in action! It was seriously hard for me to find pictures to put on there for display purposes because I had just thrown so much stuff out!

Ottoman Slipcover Tutorial

The ottoman is one of my favorite peices of furniture. It's so comfy! I love having a place to put my feet up while I watch a movie, for the dog to stretch out on, or for the kids to use as a trampoline. Talk about multi-tasking! 

But it was in need of a makeover after we painted our family room, and five months later, I finally got around to doing it. I don't know why it took me so long, because it was pretty simple.

Here's what you need to do:

I. CUTTING FABRIC/HEMMING

Measure your ottoman. I learned the hard way that you should measure more than once. Measure the top, sides, and height. I found it helpful to draw it out.

I purchased 4.5 yards of fabric, but I probably could have gotten away with 4 yards.

Cut your fabric according to your measurements. You should add an inch to each measurement (ie, if it measured 26 inches, cut it to 27 inches to account for seam allowance.) To make the pleats on the bottom, cut 4 squares that are 13 inches x the height of your bottom section. For me, this worked out to be 13x11.5.

Next, sew together the bottom peices. It should go in a pattern like this:
LONG SIDE--SQUARE (the 13x11.5 peice looked squarish, so it will be hereafter referred to as such)--SHORT SIDE--SQUARE--LONG SIDE--SQUARE--SHORT SIDE--SQUARE.
It will create an enormously long train of fabric.

Next, you want to hem the bottom edge. It will be so much easier to do this now, rather than once your pleats are in.
So, unless you're luckier than me and have a serger-- go ahead and do the double fold/iron method to create a hem.
(Doesn't my ironing board cover make you want to puke? I found it in my great aunt's basement. I should really upgrade. They're probably like $6.)

Sew down your hem.
Then sew your fabric train together, so that it makes a big circle. You'll be connecting LONG SIDE with SQUARE.
Now make sure you press all your seams.

II. PLEATS
The pleats really were simple. You'll be glad you did it, otherwise your ugly ottoman will show through, and it will make you sad whenever people come over. Believe me, I speak from experience.

Take one of your SQUARE peices and find the center. Mark it with a pin. Mine was 12 inches wide, so I marked it at 6 inches.

Then take one side of your square and fold it over so the seam lines up with your center pin. Iron it down, nice and flat. And pin it, of course.

Do the same with the other side of the SQUARE. The two seams should meet in the middle.

Repeat this procedure with all four SQUARES, then take it to your sewing machine and sew those pleats in place!

III. ALL THE REST
Now you want to attach the middle section peices to your bottom section. Line up the edges of the middle peice with the corresponding seam on your bottom section. You should leave about 1/4 inch overlapping at the seams (in between the middle peices) for seam allowance.

Sew all four middle peices to the bottom part before worrying about attaching them to eachother. It will look like a big circle when you're done. Press your seams.

Then, pin together the sides of the middle peices and sew them together, starting just under the seam where it meets with the bottom section. This will ensure it all sticks together, without gaps.
Press your seams.

Finally, attach the top peice. This is tricky because you kind of have to fiddle with the corners to make the seams line up. Just bend and tuck to the best of your ability, and if you don't like it once you've sewn it, try again.
Press your seams. Last time!

Try it on for size! Actually, I recommend trying it on for size as you complete each section, to make sure things are going according to plan. The first time I put mine on, it was 3 inches too long! I really have no idea how it happened, but I'm glad that I fixed it before adding the middle and top sections!

 Check out those pleats!

It really helps to bring the room together. Loving it!

At Last!

 At long last, my dresser/sideboard redo is finished! I bought it clear back in November and it has been tormenting me ever since! Mostly because I was too busy to paint it and the previous color was a variation of Yuck.

For this project, I actually sanded the whole thing down and painted it with Behr Black Kettle. I know, I usually do spray paint, but I already had the black so I went with that.

Then I sanded down the edges to give it a worn look. I used a sanding block, which costs about $5 at Lowe's. It was nice because I could get into the crevices on the doors, which thing could not be done with my Mouse electric sander.
After sanding, I stained the entire thing and coated it in polyurethane. You can read more about that here.

The other problem was the doors. If you look closely, there's kind of a rectangular checkerboard pattern going on there. I thought of filling it in with wood filler, but thought it would take too long. I also considered covering them with beadboard, but the reality is that I live at least 30 minutes from anywhere that sells beadboard and I was feeling too impatient.

So I just flipped the doors around and painted what was previously the backside and is now the front side. Slick, eh?

New handles on the doors and a coat of spray paint on the pulls for the drawers and it was finished. Woot! One resolution down, forty five million to go!

Lastly, I want to shout for joy that this clock is finally on the wall. I bought it for ten bucks at a yard sale in July and it has been leaning against my bedroom wall ever since. Hallelujah for getting that taken care of as well!

Valentine's Wreath Tutorial

Here is the perfect project to do while watching a movie. I know, because my husband was out of town last week and I watched A LOT of movies. This is pretty mindless, so once you get in the groove, you can bust out 45 of these rosettes no problem. For a simple tutorial on how to make the rosettes, go here.

 One problem with crafting late at night when you are the only responsible adult at home is that if you don't have a certain supply, you can't just run out and buy it. So instead of making my wreath on a wreath form, I made it from an old diaper box that I cut into a donut shape using a mixing bowl and a plate as a template.

 Once I got it cut out, I covered it with a quick coat of paint. Once that was dry, I hot glued my rosettes around the center of the wreath.

 For the second row, I added rosettes between the gaps in the first row. Then I did that again with the third row.

 Finally, I used leftover scraps to make tiny rosettes to fill in any blank spaces.

 I love the texture! I could just pet it all day!

I really love it. I keep thinking of all the fun things to do with these rosettes-- cover a picture frame, add them to a bag, make your child's initial and hang it on their wall.... Possibilities are endless!

Coffee Filter Wreath Tutorial

The best way to craft is with your friends. A couple weeks ago my old roommates and I got together for a craft day and had the best time! We each worked on our own projects, mine was this coffee filter wreath. Since I was not at home, I didn't take photos of each step, but it's pretty simple.
1. Buy a wreath form (mine was from the dollar store) and 2 packs of coffee filters (about 200).
2. Fold the coffee filters in half, then in half again.
3. Use your glue gun to attach the coffee filters to your wreath. Try to keep them going the same way.
4. Fluff the coffee filters to your heart's desire.

I like how it turned out, perfect to go with my newly painted family room.

Simple Sew Curtains

You want to know why I'm insane? It's because I got a crazy itch last month (I think it was truly one month ago) that we needed to paint our family room/kitchen. I've wanted to paint it for a while, but suddenly Sherwin Williams was having a paint sale and I knew it was my chance. I bought the paint and my husband and I stayed up till 3 am getting the first coat on. It was ridiculous. We finished painting that weekend, but it is taking me FOREVER to get my house put back together. The holidays are just making it harder-- instead of putting things in their proper place, they are getting shoved into cupboards to make room for Christmas decorations. It is such a mess.

Anyway, this post is actually about my new curtains. Here's what I didn't like about my old curtains:

1. They were silk and I couldn't wash them. I have little ones with messy hands in my kitchen, so I need to be able to throw my curtains in the wash.

2. The rod was low and looked kind of stoopy. (Sorry I don't have a photo, just trust me on this.)

So when I got a chance to do new curtains, I knew the things I needed to change. Washable fabric, hang the rod higher. Simple. Now, according to the Nester, all you have to do is hang your fabric to your rod with clips and you're done. I've done that in other rooms and it's turned out great. But, I knew I would be washing these curtains, so I washed my fabric first.

Look what happened.....

 See how it shrunk 4 inches? This was a problem.
Also, this...

 Super frayed edges from the wash/dry cycle.

No big deal. I just double folded my fabric to create a hem at the top. And, I came up with this neat trick-- I wanted to make sure that all my seams were the same size since they would be incredibly visible up there on my wall. I know that there are nifty tools called seam guides that measure you seams for you, but I don't own one. And, since I only do my craft projects in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep, I couldn't just run out and get one. So, I cut a peice of cardstock to be the exact length I wanted my seam to be, and I used it as a guide for the entire project. This way, all my seams are the same. Is that brilliant or what?

 Here's a finished hem hanging from the rod. Much better.

Now, how to fix my too-short curtain issue? I didn't want to have a bunch of seams down there, so I just bought one long peice of fabric, cut it, folded it in half, and sewed it to the main curtain. Since my curtains were 4 inches too short, I cut the fabric to be 8 inches long so that when I folded it in half it would be the 4 inches I needed.
This really looks awesome. The seam is barely noticeable from the front view. Plus, the extra fabric down there gives the curtains some weight, which helps them to hang better. Woot!

Finished product:

Holy flip it is impossible to take a decent photo of a window. The camera picks up all the natural light and makes everything else so dark. But you get the idea.

Curtain Call

Let's talk about curtains. They can really add a finishing touch to a room, bringing it all together. They can also be super expensive. It makes me want to choke when I look at the Pottery Barn catolog and see curtains for $80 a panel. I mean, really, who is paying that? That's like a week's worth of groceries!
But I digress. In the process of finishing our bedroom, I wanted to add some curtains to our windows. But here's the thing about our bedroom: there are two windows that are fairly small and I didn't want to cut off the natural light. I wanted something light and airy to make it feel fresh, and to contrast with the heaviness of our bed. (Have I mentioned how I love my bed?)
You want to know my cheap, yet effective solution?
A white sheet.
Yep, from our queen bed set that doesn't fit the new bed. I cut the sheet into four equal peices, hemmed the sides, and hung them on my wall. So easy! You could totally find a sheet at DI or a garage sale to do this with.
Here's another thing: Everyone says that hanging your curtains higher than your window makes your window look bigger and makes your room taller. I did not believe until I tried it with these. It really does add height to the room! Also, because the windows are small and I didn't want to cut off the sunshine, I hung most of the curtain over the wall, and very little actually overlaps the window. See the illusion that my window is bigger than it really is?
Hanging the curtains with the ring clips made the project easier because I didn't have to sew a pocket for them to go over the curtain rod. And I really like the look of it, it just has more personality.
And, I want to share with you a great find I had: Big Lots has curtain rods and ring clips for about $5 less than anywhere else. My rods were $6.99 and the rings were $5.50 for 14. Can't beat it. The total for my curtains was $20!

How to Hang Pictures on the Wall

I know that it seems like I've fallen off the face of the planet..... Sorry. I have actually been working on projects, but haven't made time to blog them yet.

My vision for my loft has always been that it would be a place for our family to be together enjoying life. It is where my craft supplies are, where the computer is, where the girls' creative play toys are, where we keep board games and puzzles.... It really is where we spend the majority of our time. I wanted something in the room to reflect who we are as a family. (I also want to paint a mural of a tree with cute little birdies in it, but that's another story.)

So I started collecting frames from DI, garage sales, under my bed, etc. I spray painted them so they all match, because they were a hodge podge of different shades, shapes, and textures.

Then, I laid them out on the floor and fiddled with them until they were in an arrangement I liked. I wanted it to be casual and fun, which is why they are all kind of randomly (purposely) placed.

I traced the outlines of the frames and where the picture hanging thingies on the backs of them were onto a huge sheet of wrapping paper. Then I taped that to the wall and put my nails in through the wrapping paper. This way, I know they are all positioned exactly how I wanted them, and I didn't put a million extra holes in the wall.

Tore the wrapping paper down (of course it was Tinkerbell Christmas paper, what else does a family of girls have lying around?), and hung up the pictures. There it is. Our cute little family. I love it.