Shirt for her Birthday... And The Sale!

Hey guys!!  We celebrated my daughter's birthday today.  When I saw the fabric interfacing out from Silhouette I thought this would be the perfect time to try this stuff out!  I wanted to make her a shirt to wear to her birthday party.   I am a sucker for fabric.  I walked into JoAnn's to get only fabric for the shirt and walked out with enough to make a matching skirt... Ahhh.  Addicting.

Let me show you how cool this stuff is. Here is her shirt...

All you have to do is iron your transfer material onto your fabric.  This takes just a few seconds.

You stick your fabric on your cutting mat and run it through the machine.  The settings come on the instructions.  Super easy!

Once you are done you start pulling away the excess fabric.

And your design peels right off!  Whoop!

Your last step is to iron it on.  I used the sewable transfer with my design since it would be on clothing.  I wanted it to look a bit messy and rough as it washes so I added a fun zigzag stitch around the whole design to seal the deal.  The other option is clean cut which does not require any sewing but you do have to hand stitch it if you are wanting to machine wash it.  I think it would be great for pillows and home decor projects!! I have a few in my head at the moment :-)

I finished it up and got a few more pictures of her before the fam came over.

And the skirt :-)

Fun, Fun. Hope you like it!!

For those of you that are still here... Here is the sale! :-)

For those of you that still need a Silhouette machine...

This month's promo is great!

Just use the code SHANTY at checkout to receive...

Silhouette SD Machine

Sewable Fabric Interfacing

Clean Cut Fabric Interfacing

White Flocked Heat Transfer (I LOVE this stuff)

All for $229!!

For those of you that have the Silhouette and want to try out this great interfacing you can use the code SHANTY to receive 25% off all interfacing!

This promo starts the 21st and is good only through the 27th!!

Hope you get to take advantage of that and let me know if you have any questions!!

~Whitney

Master Bath Window

So, just warning you... This is another curtain post.

I am a bit of a "phasey" person and my phase at the moment is window coverings.

I have a favorite window in my house back in my bathroom.  It's a big 4' window that opens to my backyard.  When we built the house I loved the idea of having a window that big in my bathroom.  I LOVE natural light and what better place for it.  My original plans for this window were shutters... Until I had them quoted :-/.  They were more expensive than the windows. No, thanks!

I ended up making a roman shade for it that has been up since we moved in.  It was a temporary 2 year fix.

I recently ran across some cheapo wood brackets at Lowe's and my head started spinning!

I love the way my ruffled curtains turned out in the laundry room and knew something similar would be great in here too.

Here is how they turned out...

Let me show you how inexpensive these were to make!

I found these brackets for around $2 at Lowe's.

I also used the a set of finials from Lowe's for around $3.  These are the same ones we use on the apothecaries and photo displays.

I also used a piece of wood closet pole.  You can by this by the foot for around $1 a foot.  You can also use dowel rods if your window is under 4'.

I stained all of those pieces with a dark mahogany stain.  While they were drying I started on my curtains.  For this window I used this drop cloth.

It was around $12.  I cut the bottom foot or so off and used it for my ruffles.  I used the same method I used on my laundry curtains for these.  You can find those directions HERE.

Once everything was dry, I used anchors and drywall screws to attach the brackets to my wall.  I hung the panels up and the screwed the finials into both ends.

Here it is all finished...

See the big scrolly thing there on the left?? Well... That's my next revamp.  I have big plans for that wall right there.  It just took some ruffles to get me inspired... Whoop!!

We will be announcing the winners of our O'Keeffe's Working Hands giveaway and our Say It on the Wall giveaway tomorrow.  You have until then to enter so make sure and check them out!  We will also be announcing another fun giveaway as well!  Woohoo... Loving all this free stuff :-)

Happy Friday!

~Whitney

Cute Curtains!!

Happy Monday!!!

I hope you guys had a great Super Bowl weekend!  I spent mine watching Cars and Toy Story 2 so it was great :-)!

I have also had lots of questions about these...

If you can sew a straight stitch... You can make these babies!

I love the ease and look of panels.  I have them throughout my whole house!  I was going for cheap and chic for this window so I settled on a mix of drop cloth fabric and ticking.

THIS is the drop cloth that I typically buy at Lowe's to make panels and curtains.  I love the 4' width of it which means that both sides are already hemmed for me and all I have to do is finish off the top and bottom.  Ash has even finished her tops and bottoms using hot glue which works great on this canvas... You can't even tell!!!

 I also bought 1/3 yard of red ticking at JoAnn's for $5.99 a yard.

I started by cutting my drop cloth to the length I needed it.  My window is 51" so I cut 2- 54" panels.  Then,  folded the tops and bottoms two times to form a hem and ironed them down.  After ironing them I used my machine to make a straight stitch.  If you don't sew, this is where you would hot glue!

Now I cut 4 - 2.5" strips of ticking and hemmed one end of each strip the exact same way... Folding, ironing and then straight stitching.

I fed the other end of my ticking strips through my ruffler.

Many of you have heard me talk about my ruffler.  It is a foot that attaches to your machine and with a straight stitch it very quickly and easily ruffles your fabric... Can't beat that!  Just make sure you purchase one that is compatible with your brand of machine!

I ruffled each of my strips and attached them to the bottom of the panels like this.

I attached the bottom strip first.  This is the top of my panel and I attached the ruffle with the bad side facing forward and up.  Then, after I had both sewn on I ironed them down.  That gives me this look and hides all my stitching...

I purchased THIS cafe rod in bronze from Lowe's to hang my ruffled panels.

I also purchased THESE cafe rings from Lowe's.

That was it... I clipped it up and I was ready to go.  The best part about using drop cloth is that the color is the same as I would use to back normal curtains.  So... You get to skip that step.  Whoop!!

Hope you like them!  Let me know if you have any questions!!

DON'T FORGET ABOUT TONIGHT'S PARTY!!!

It starts around 9:00 pm central time!  We want to see any and ALL crafts, projects and revamps you gals have been up to without the help of your man!

We have a fun giveaway planned for all that enter so we will see you tonight!

Thanks for stopping by!!

~Whitney

Burlap Trees... Take 2!

Thanks so much for all your sweet comments on the ruffled trees in my last post!  I owe Erin for that awesome idea and I wanted to give you guys one more spin on these.  I decorate my house for Christmas in whites and blues... At least this year.  I am also a sucker for almost anything burlap and canvas which brought me to this take on the Ruffle Tree...

How cute, huh??

I only did a few things different...

Instead of ribbon I cut strips of burlap and drop cloth to ruffle up.

One reader asked if I did a continuous strip of the tree or if I glued it in layers.  Each tree is different.  The green one in my last post is one continuous strip going up the tree.  This tree is separate pieces at each layer.  This is what under the ruffles looks like...

I kept the edges nice and messy because I like them that way.  The bottom is the same.  I just glued on one of those great wooden spindles.  You can also use a candlestick!

And I did the twine around the top with a few jingle bells just like before...

That's it! All done...

For those of you that prefer a more muted Christmas like myself, this is your tree :-)

Also, I had a few readers ask about the ruffler foot.  I have a Brother NX-600 sewing machine.  I have this ruffler foot here except mine is silver.

My neighbor down the street just bought a ruffler for her White machine and found the cheapest on Ebay.  If you find one on Ebay (just search Ruffler foot) you can ask the seller if it fits your model.  If you have a local sewing store they may carry them there as well.  They all fit just a bit different so make sure that it fits your model.  Hope this helps!

Have a super weekend... I'm going to get my Christmas tree up :-)

Thanks again Miss Erin for this super cute idea!!

~Whitney

Ruffle Christmas Trees!!

Make sure to go enter our Silhouette Machine Giveaway HERE!!!

Yes girls... It's that time again! Well, for me it comes a bit sooner in the year than most but I am pretty sure that is a hereditary thing (our mom puts on Christmas music in late September).  So... Let's get to it!  Here is my latest project...

How cute are those?? I can only take credit for execution on this one.  My sweet friend/ partner-in-crime Erin came over for a craft day this week.  She told me she would be bringing lots of "goodies"!  Not only did she bring goodies... She also brought LOTS of super cute ideas! This is just one of them.

We started with a few supplies...

We started with some super cute ribbon from Hobby Lobby.

And a few styrofoam cones!

STOP! Don't click the red X just yet!! I am hoping that this will be the post that I will finally convince all of you that you need both a basic sewing machine and a ruffler foot.  This is so super easy and everything is cuter with a ruffle :)

I ran one end of the ribbon through the ruffler and a few minutes later I was done.

I started by glueing the ruffles from the bottom to the top.  I used my hot glue gun at a low temp setting to keep it from melting the cone. 

On this tree I alternated my ribbon on each row... Just because it's cute.

We needed some feet for our trees and I quickly remembered the stash of wooden spindles I scored in Round Top that have been hiding in my garage.  My hubby has asked if he can throw them out about 16,465 times so I am sure he was happy to see at least two of them leave the pile.

I used my saw to cut off the ends of a couple of them to use as bases.  You can also use a candlestick like Erin did on her paper trees!

Then I gave them a coat of our very fav Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch Heirloom White!

I also used it to paint these super cute mini finials I found at Hobby Lobby!

Finally, I glued my base to my bottom.

Yah, that's a different tree but I will share that later :-)

I glued my finial to the top and wrapped some twine around it just because it's cute.  I had some little silver jingle bells that I tied on to each end.  That's it!

Don't you love them!?! So now is the time (if you have not already) to get a sewing machine and ruffler on that Christmas list!! It's so easy... I promise!!

Check out Erin's blog for more fun ideas!  She just created this super cute book tree and has a great tutorial for it!

I hope you like trees because there are more to come :-)!! 

Have a happy Friday!

~Whitney

Philippians 4:7

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.