Curtain dilemma...

Moving into my new home, I never really thought about my curtain lengths. I just knew I had plenty of curtains that I had used in my previous houses, and I was pretty happy with them all. Well, I knew I had tall windows in my new house, but never really thought about it, until I started putting them up. All my curtains were the standard 84in length, and my windows were 96in!

So I knew I had to buy curtains, but I had no idea they would be so hard to find! I would find a pattern I liked, but then it would be too expensive or the wrong length. Then I would find some that were the right length, but I never liked them. So finally, I just decided to make my own. I saw some on another blog that I really liked, so I figured I would try to make them.

I had several beige tab top panels from our first house that were just sitting in a bin in my attic, so I thought I could stencil the pattern and then sew a solid block panel to the bottom to get my length.

I went to Hobby Lobby and got a stencil, blue acrylic paint ,and textile medium. I used 3 parts paint to 1 part medium and began stenciling away.

 Make sure you use a drop cloth beneath your curtain, because the paint does bleed through.  Luckily, it wiped off rather easily.

I really love the way they turned out.  The blue block panel hasn't been sewn on yet, but they are hidden behind my love seat right now.  I will tackle that in a week or two. I think I am going to run the blue up the middle edge too.  Stay tuned...

Turquoise crazy

OK, so I have went a little turquoise crazy...just a bit. I have painted a few more things in my new favorite color.  I'm not really that crazy, and I didn't put them all into one room.  They each have a place of their own in different rooms. 

I used the same technique as I did on the chairs and table for these projects.

 

 

This was an ugly old dresser I got at a garage sale a few summers ago.  I paid $3.50 for this bad girl...and my husband said I spent way too much.  It was that ugly!!

 

 

Here are a few more things I painted...

 

I may have went a tad bit overboard on the color, but I think I've had my turquoise fix and do not plan on painting anything else this color...at least for a while.

 

My Search for the Chairs

So I had my new table, but I didn't have any chairs to match.  What is a girl to do? Well, I went and searched for a few weeks. Finally, about a month after I finished my table, I found (what looked like the exact chairs that went to my table) at Habitat Restore!  There were 4 chairs for $8 each...not too shabby!

I swear, I truly think these chairs are from my table.  It was the same white paint and wood stain...so basically, my table and these chairs were also soul mates.

Again, being lazy, I didn't sand anything.  I even skipped the step of painting the brown paint over the white.  I simply painted over the white with the turquoise paint. 

I tried my very best to keep from getting paint on the seats.  I made sure I kept my Oops wipes beside me just in case...  Anyway, after I painted the turquoise, I let it sit over night.

The next morning, I decided I would use a dry brush with the brown paint, and basically dry brush to distress the chairs. 

I'm so glad I did.  I think they turned out great! 

 After the brown paint dried, which didn't take very long at all, I applied one coat of varnish. I hate to sand, so I just left the seats their original color and finish.  Maybe I will get tired of the two-toned wood and stain the seats, or maybe not...depends on my mood.

The varnish is pretty stinky, so I let them sit in my garage for a day to air out.  They look so good together and I'm pretty excited that I only spent about $60 on the whole project, including my paint/stain. I need to get a better picture, but you can somewhat see just how well they look together.

My Turquoise Love...

Hello all, I am so excited you came to visit me on my blog.  I am completely new to this, so please do not judge too harshly.  As my bio states, I am currently working on decorating and making my new house a home.  Being on a tight budget, I've had to get pretty creative/crafty.  Without Pinterest and other amazing blogs like Our Fifth House and Whipperberry , I don't know what I would do. 
 
One of my first challenges in my new home was a dining table.  I have a formal dining room and a kitchen dining area...all new to me.  Moving into this house, we basically doubled our living space, which means most of my house is bare.  Back to my challenge...I needed a table to go in my kitchen, but didn't have very much in my budget to get one.  I found an amazing picture of a table on Pinterest and knew this was the table I wanted, and this table basically started my love affair with turquoise. 
 
Here was my new soul mate...It was truly love at first sight!  I loved the how the color popped and the distressing gave it so much character.  Just looking at it made me giddy :) 

 



I knew I had to have one of my own, so I set out to find one.  My mom, Carol, and I went out searching garage sales and resale shops, but I just didn't see anything that could come close.  We decided to run and grab a drink on our way home, and low and behold, we found an old warehouse with a bunch of junk out in front of it.  We started looking at the stuff, and that's when I spotted my table!  We whipped in, and ran straight to the table.  The man running the sale told us the sale was for missions, and with that being said, I was sold!  What a perfect way to get my table and give to missions all at the same time.  The table had a sticker of $20, but was pretty dirty and had a crack in the top, so he said he would take $15...score!!! I loaded the sucker up and took it home with me. 
 
(I forgot to take the picture before sanding the top, sorry.)

 

 

 
 

I immediately got to work sanding the top coat of varnish off.  After I sanded and cleaned the top, I painted the white legs with a dark brown paint to cover the white. I'm too impatient, so I didn't prime anything.  I just straight up painted a sloppy coat just to cover the legs and let it sit over night. 

 

 



 

 The next morning, I could hardly wait to get back to my new love.  I painted a coat of latex turquoise paint over the dark brown.  As I painted, I made sure that plenty of the brown showed in certain places.  I even took a rag and wiped some away. 

(I didn't completely have this covered yet)

 

 

After I had my distressed turquoise coat on, I let it set.  For the top, I used a cherry looking wipe off stain.  I just applied the coat, and wiped it off after about 10 minutes.  I had to repeat this step about 3 times to get the color I wanted. 

 

 When I got my color just right, I applied a varnish.  I used two coats of it. 

 

 

Here she is!  Isn't she beautiful?!!  I'm pretty excited for my $15 table.  All I need now are the chairs...