Run, Don't Walk...

to your local Costco today, ladies (and Eric)!! I picked up the new Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts: Basic Techniques for Sewing, Applique, Embroidery, Quilting, Dyeing, and Printing, plus 150 Inspired Projects from A to Z (Hardcover) {wow, that is quite a ridiculous title, no?} for a scant $18.99! That is $2.00 cheaper that Amazon.com and you don't have to spend $25.00 to get free shipping!  

So excited!

Monkey Love

"

"Hello, won't you join me?"

Remember when?

Remember a while back, I told you guys I had decided on a rug? It came in about 5 weeks ago and, sure enough, it was skewed enough to be noticeable.

This is only about a foot of pattern and just in that 12 inches you can see that on the left there is a small "ivory" triangle and on the right there is a larger "ivory" triangle with a "light mocha" dot in it.

It took me almost a week to go and see it (the binder guy is only there until 3pm during the week and he is about 20 miles from me) and I was not happy. Maybe it is unrealistic of me, but I feel if I am spending the equivalent of a mortgage payment on something then it should be damn near perfect. It took me three days to work up the nerve to call the woman at the place that ordered it for me (I do not like confrontation) and she was all "No problem, don't worry about it, I'll call you when I get an arrival date for the next shipment". I still have not heard from her. It's been a month. Of course.

Bloggy Buddy Giveaway and New Etsy Store!

My bloggy buddy Erin at SYL:Slipcover Your Life just opened her very own Etsy store! *round of applause* Yay!
I was her her very first customer - so exciting! I bought the Bunting Counted Cross Stitch Kit.

You get to pick custom colors, she sends you all the bits and bobs to make the piece, and then you get to cross stitch your very own, Erin created work of art! Seriously, you have no idea how jazzed I am about this. I used to cross stitch with my mom when I was little and it was sooo much fun.
Go check out her blog - she and some other lovely ladies are having giveaways galore to celebrate her store opening! Get in on the fun...

So cute!

 Bet I know which giveaway will be on My Owl Barn!

DIY: Curtains for Super Cheap

When my mother and I went on our first road-trip to IKEA, I had decided I wanted all the window treatments on the ground floor to match. We bought 7 sets of LENDA drapes because they were inexpensive and they had a slight, but not overpowering, striped detail. Each set was $20. That is a lot of fabric for $20!
I have since decided that I do NOT want all the draperies to match, so I have lots of extra fabric.
We have a bay window in our Dining Room. It is an awkward size. (Has anyone ever noticed that the word awkward LOOKS awkward? Like aardvark. Strange.) I tried many things to cover these windows, including this ridiculous non-solution:

The Umbra Solutions Bayview Nickel Window Set. It's nickel. Check. It's fully adjustable. Check. It looks classy and is not at all cheap and looks like something someone would put up in a trailer home. Um... NO CHECK. That little adjustable part? Rubber. And as you can see in the photo, not at all the same color as the rest of the fixture. Ridiculous. I waited for that stupid thing to re-stock for a month. And then it's totally cheap and gross looking. Grrr...

I wanted roman shades, but unfortunately for me the windows are 20" on the sides and 30" in the center. No one makes shades in these sizes. And I didn't want to spend $600 on window treatments for custom.

Eventually I was inspired by a set of balloon shades I saw somewhere... Surely, it can't be too difficult to make these, right? Well, it's not. It's just time consuming. And I am lazy. So this is what our window looked like for... ohh... about 2 months.. eh, maybe 3.

Classy, I know. But remember, my kitchen "curtains" looked like this for 4 months:

And now it looks like this:

I knew it could be done.

Well, here it is:

I used one set of drapes. So all in all it cost me $20 and about 6 hours of my time.
I am going to have to rethink the ties in the fairly near future. They are simply the hems from the sides of the drapes cut off. They were already hemmed, already the right size and pliability, I thought "Why not?" Well, here's why not. They are already starting to fray. Hmm... Anyone have any ideas for ties that does not involve me sewing a 100 inch long tube of fabric?

Monkey Love

"I wanna help measure the windows..."

Mary Kay Andrew: Fixer Upper

I just finished reading Mary Kay Andrews book Fixer Upper. It's brilliant. I'm not great with fancy words, so the best anybody usually gets out of me is "It was funny" or "I enjoyed it" or "It's good, you'd like it". However, I LOVE Mary Kay Andrews as a writer. I wish she had 10 more books I hadn't read yet, except that then I would get absolutely nothing done.
I purchased the book yesterday at lunch at Borders. I cracked it open when I got home from work, then had to stop to cook dinner. I started reading again around 10 and stayed up until 2 reading. Mister had to work overtime this weekend, so he left early this morning and I have done nothing since but read. And I am telling you "You HAVE to read this book". If you look at Mrs. Andrews website, you'll see that she loves Interior Design and that really shines through in her writing. The descriptions are so spot-on you can actually see the room around you, you experience the work Dempsey is doing on her "fixer upper" house, and feel the contentment and appreciation for the hard work she has put in.
The book is wonderfully exhilarating; it gives you a ridiculously mixed feeling of benign guilt - the book sucks you in and makes unable to stop reading, while also making you feel so inspired by the transformation that you want to get up and redecorate your entire home! Read it, you'll thank me.