Thanksgiving Dining Room

Hey Friends! The last few days here in the mountaintops have been absolutely spectacular. It has been sunny and cool, with temps reaching about sixty. In November, we'll take it! In fact, as I look out the window right now, the park is full of people out enjoying the weather. And, as I typed that sentence, my son hit the front door with his Frisbee! Life is good up in here!

 I decorated my dining room for Thanksgiving the other day. I've never had a house with a formal dining room before, so I was very excited to make it pretty for fall! The only thing missing is a rug, but that is something that will come later. For now, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

The first thing I did was to sew myself up a new tablecloth. I am so in love with shades of aqua and turquoise recently. I just love how the fabric plays off of the curtain colors, too. Isn't it pretty? I picked up the fabric from a red-tag bolt at JoAnn Fabrics. I don't think I paid more than 7 or 8 dollars for it. I pressed the ends and hemmed around the edges with a zig-zag stitch.

 I've had this metal pumpkin for YEARS. Years, I tell you. I think I bought it for House Number One. Every Fall, I take it out of storage, and it ends up somewhere different every time. I decided it would make a pretty centerpiece this year, and so there it sits, atop the Lazy Susan.

This little vignette sits on top of the little cabinet where I keep my collection of Delft Blue pieces. (I'll talk about that another day). The platter came from one of my favorite places for home decor here in Utah: Tai Pan Trading. They have everything there you can imagine, and the platter was only $5.00! If you don't live in Utah, I know I've seen similar platters at WalMart. The little vase is something my husband picked up in Japan when he was a young Mormon missionary there. He brought it home and gave it to his grandmother. When she died, the vase came home to us.

Here are the little pilgrims and turkey standing guard at the side table.

I made this cute banner from a tutorial I found on Pinterest. I'll save that for another post, though. It's made from Chalk Cloth by Moda. I love that you can use it over and over again. All you need is chalk! The "Happy Fall Y'All" is an homage to our friends and family back in Texas.

Here it is, hanging on my mantel last month.

I'm so excited about Thanksgiving. It's a time to express gratitude for everything I have. I hope that I can remember to express those feelings throughout the year, and not just in November. This year I'm especially grateful for a beautiful new home!

Happy Fall, Y'All.

Duvet to Drapes on a Dime

I've mentioned that I hate blinds, right? Let's talk about what I DO like. Natural light. Cool breezes blowing in through the window. Curtains that flow and billow in said breeze.

House No. 3 has lots and lots of windows that let in an enormous amount of sunlight. I guess I'm kind of like Superman -- not so much in the sense that I'm extremely good-looking or can fly -- but in the sense that I crave the warm sunshine on my skin. No sunlight=no energy for this girl! But I digress. Score one for House No. 3 and sunlight! Also, we live in the mountains, where cool breezes are plentiful.

There are 12 windows on the main floor of the house, and all but 3 are in need of curtains. I'd been thinking for quite some time about what kind of curtains I wanted. And do you know what? Curtains are hard to find! You have to get the size right. It's difficult to find a print/pattern that complements your decor. In addition to that, they're super expensive! I found curtains that I really liked, but they cost $100 per panel. That's $200 per window, people! Who can afford that? Certainly not a freelance writer!

So one day a few weeks ago, I'm walking through my favorite TJ Maxx store, feeling dejected because they didn't have any curtains I liked, when something pretty catches my eye. It's a duvet cover made up of the exact colors I wanted for my curtains! And maybe it's because my brain was in "curtain" mode, but I had a brilliant idea. Why not turn this duvet cover into curtains? I looked at the measurements and figured I could make the curtains I needed if I bought three duvet covers -- luckily, they had exactly three on the shelf!

So I brought them home and took them apart. At first I used a seam ripper, which took forever an hour to unpick one duvet cover. Then I realized at 80-inches wide, I had more than enough fabric, so I took the scissors to them.

As I've mentioned in another post, the less sewing I do, the better off my projects are. The thought of pressing, rolling, and hemming all those looooong edges was too much of a risk. After all, people are going to see these things everyday! So I called my awesome sister-in-law, who let me use her serger. We whipped through those babies so fast, I forgot to take pictures!

I ended up with 3 sets of curtains for the family room:

(Yes, the wind had blown our deck chairs all over the place that day)!

And two sets of curtains for the office:

In all, I spent $75 for 5 sets of curtains, that billow in the breeze quite nicely, thank you. Remember that ONE panel that cost $100? Besides that, I couldn't have purchased material at a fabric store for that price. And I still have plenty of fabric left over to make matching throw pillows! As far as curtain rods go, I'm convinced Ikea is the best place for those. Each rod system I purchased cost about $7 -- including the rod, brackets, and clip rings. Not too shabby.

SO -- I hope this little project inspires you to think outside the box for one of your next projects. If you do, be sure to share it with me!

Lazy Seamstress Kitchen Window Panel

Do you hate blinds as much as I do? They gather dust, they're always in my way, the cords get tangled...yeah, I hate blinds. I like curtains and drapes much better. Sure, they get dusty, too, but you can just throw 'em in the washer.

So House No. 3 has a west-facing kitchen window, and the heat has been BRUTAL in the afternoons. Also, I'm practically blinded when trying to cook dinner.

I had a little spare time the other morning, so I decided to sew up a panel for the window. I am definitely a lazy seamstress. I figure the less sewing I actually do, the better my project will look! I went to the store and bought a yard of this bright, cheerful fabric:

The dimensions of the fabric were near perfect, so I didn't cut anything at all! It was 5 inches longer and 3 inches wider than my window, so I pressed and hemmed accordingly, using a zig-zag stitch. (I didn't take pictures of any actual sewing --sorry)! The bottom edge was the selvage edge, and like I said, the less sewing I do, the better it will look. So I left it raw. I sewed a pocket hem at the top and used a tension spring rod to hang it.

I love the bright zing of color it adds to my very neutral kitchen. I just push it open to one side when I want the natural light to come in.

All said and done, this little sewing project cost $7.00 for the fabric, $3.50 for the rod, and took a little less than an hour to do!