Tablecloth turned curtain panels

On the second floor of an antique mall in downtown Jonesborough(the oldest town in Tennessee) is a booth full of old embroidered tablecloths & napkins, piles of doilies and other dainty knick-knacks. This is my favorite place to go to find sweet patterned fabrics...it almost never lets me down.
I found this tablecloth with a pattern I adore. The border is my favorite part, and the colors are perfect! 

I brought it home and cut it in half using my rotary cutter....

Notice the porch surface? This happened before we painted our porch....so glad we got that done!

The cut wasn't perfect, but I knew I'd be sewing the edges eventually because I had decided to turn this tablecloth into new curtains for our kitchen window!

I originally was looking for a quilt top, which is probably terribly hard to find, to use for curtains like in this lovely home...

Seriously, I love everything about this home. I think it's the reason my tastes have started to change.

I used the sewing machine and talent of my friend Jamie during one of our craft nights and started hemming the edges and leaving enough room across the top for the curtain rod.

During this process, I realized that I need to ease up when it comes to sewing....I had an awful experience with mine about a year ago and have sworn to never touch it again....anytime a sewing machine makes an odd sound or even the slightest jam and I get anxious. Jamie was a good encouragement and watching how fast she zips the fabric through was exactly what I needed. It was so simple! It took about 20 minutes from the time we started ironing the edges to completed curtains.

I got them hung up above the sink and I am so happy!

For holdbacks I found these beautiful knobs from Hobby Lobby and spray painted them Olive Green.

Then I added a little something extra to the center of the window.

I had this oval frame with no glass so I decided to string a strip of fabric through it and cut out some scrapbook paper, adding a few words I need to remember while washing the dishes.

Anytime I needed text on a project before I got the Silhouette, but didn't trust my own handwriting with a paintbrush(which is pretty much always) I would use these rub-on letters.

They are pretty amazing, and look almost exactly like they came right out of a typewriter.

Then I spray painted another hook I had at the house and hung it below the words for a dish rag or towel to hang.

Sorry about the picture quality, these were taken at night, since it's the only window in the kitchen, I just couldn't get the lighting right. But here's a peak at how they look during the day when the sun shines through...

For a pair of new curtains I paid $8.00 plus the cost of some white thread for Jamie's sewing machine. Win!

Before:

After:

If your response to this change is something like "wow that window looks a lot more old-ladyish" then we're on the right track. I'm going for more old-fashioned (old lady) charm.

PS. This is what happens when you take a pee-break and allow your crawling son to continue venturing on his own around the kitchen when you have the dishwasher door open....

He got stuck. Why is it called child-proof when we alter our homes in order to keep our kids safe? I think this photo is proof enough that we have a child! Just kidding mom, I'm working on it!

Allison

Up off the Counter

One day long ago I went to a thrift store and bought every single metal candlestick they had. At less than $1.00 a piece why not? At the time I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with them, only that I had just been introduced to the wonders that spray-paint can accomplish so I figured I'd give them new life with color.


Then Pinterest happened (yes, I've had these candlesticks for that long). And when I found this fruit/cupcake tiered stand, I knew exactly what I would use my candlesticks for!

Mary Janes & Galoshes

Here's what my collection had become, minus a few that I've already converted to useful items.

Candlesticks have been a cinch for me to find. The pie tins are another story-maybe I just don't know where to look, and I suppose you can buy them brand new; I've found four without looking too hard, and they've all been purchased at antique or thrift stores. My first step is placing tins on top of sticks until I've found that perfect match up for what I had in mind.

I spray painted the candlesticks a shade of blue, the pie tins I gave a white coat, and then I used an odd sort of metal putty called SteelStik that completely hardens after a while and secured the pieces together. The guy at Lowe's advised me to use this.

This metal glue stuff STINKS. It smells just like this town called Sulfur Springs in Texas that I used to drive through on the way to Tennessee. I was hilariously amused to read the packaging where it stated that this stuff is from none other than....Sulfur Springs, TX! Sorry to anyone out there reading who has a love for this East Texas town...

So here they are, painted, stuck, and dried.

I'd planned to use the big tin to hold hand soap, lotion, and a dish brush to keep next to the kitchen sink. The smaller tin was the perfect size for bar soap for the bathroom sink. 

I also laid a doily at the bottom of the larger tin just for something extra and I found a teensy porcelain bowl for the dish brush to sit in so it'd look fancy and wouldn't drain onto the doily or spray-painted surface.

I love how everything is contained together, just how it would be directly on the counter, only somehow this elevated dish makes it look cleaner....and gives me back that little bit of counter space.

Next, I'm definitely going to make a tiered piece for my jewelry, and eventually I'd love to make something for fruit and to have on hand for little treats or cupcakes at a party. Something like this...

So there you have it, a creative way to get your necessities off the counter but still at arm's length!

Joy vs. Escape, & Pegboard

Recently, my ability to create has been re-established. I've been thinking a lot about the difference between escape and joy; during which I've learned a lot about myself. 


The past 10 months have been a wave of change, bringing about tremendous, heart-stretching amounts of growth & stagnation, anxiety & elation, irritability & contentedness, and any other oxymoronic pair of emotions you could conjure. Quite possibly, I'm delving into topics unrelated to blog-worthy territory...all this to say: life requires a lot more of me lately.
I've realized that I have the unhealthy knee-jerk response of escape when dealing with major life alterations. I'm embarrassed at how many countless minutes I've spent becoming lost in things that are truly meaningless, and equally embarrassing are the countless minutes spent anxiously wondering what I can accomplish to fill my free moments. 
Escape is something I do to remove myself from situations. Example: Finn's down for a nap, so I'll watch Secret Life of the American Teenager (What? Seriously?!) for 1.5 hours.

Joy is never found in my escape. Joy is a gracious gift that can't be received by an unwilling heart. My heart has been closed tightly to try to protect against the discomfort of losing my life for HIS sake to save it.

Because I continuously chose escape over joy, I've had to learn what it is that brings me joy and allow those things to enter back in.
Creating is one of those joy-filling gifts. It's never the easier choice to bring out the spray paint, painting tray, rolling brush, stencils, ruler, etc. But despite the mess I make and the effort it usually takes, choosing what brings me joy over what will offer escape is always worth it.

Which brings me to...pegboard! 

I really love this stuff, especially when it's been spray-painted. I even love the way pegboard smells, something about it reminds me of kindergarten. I love how Lowe's has almost a whole aisle dedicated to pegboard organizational accessories. 


So, here's the kitchen stand-alone cabinet purchased at the beginning of March (I think, time flies) before adding pegboard to the wall space.

And here's the pegboard, spray-painted and mounted to the wall.

My favorite part: finding a spot for all of these cooking supplies that freed up space in the kitchen drawers! Ah, love it!

On the other side I thought it'd be good to make a "stash away" zone for random items, including commonly referenced books, my journal, sunglasses and glasses, keys, wallet, etc.

I'm not quite finished with this side, still looking for more storage items. I was super proud of the shelf I made with the pegboard shelf brackets and old book.

This is what this open area of our kitchen looked like before I decided it'd be a smarter use of space to get a free-standing cupboard. Note: this might look like a great idea, but this picture is deceiving. I never sat at this desk, I've always preferred our kitchen table, and it became an evil magnet for all sorts of unimaginable clutter. 

Storage space of any kind has become like gold in this house since we lack a basement, attic, and have very minimal closet space. So, naturally, I am definitely happier with the present state of this little piece of kitchen.

Thanks for giving me an outlet to further share one of my delights in life!

Thanks to my amazing parents, tomorrow morning, our great friend, neighbor, and general contractor (all one man!) is breaking ground on our shed to give it some new life. Concrete instead of dirt floors? Yes please! A garage door so we can free up a whole room in our house that we've been using as tool storage? Yes, yes yes please! I am elated!

DIY Spice Jars

My white vinyl finally came so I could complete what I thought would be a speedy project! Ta daa!

They're so cute aren't they? I used magnetic knife strips and screwed them into the top of our cabinets. Then I filled 1.5 ounce glass hexagon jars (bought here)with the spices I use most often (or the ones I thought would be prettiest on display).

Finally, I labeled my jars with lettering cut from the good ol' Silhouette SD.  

Don't mind the messy countertops...is that spilt flour?

I did think this would clear more room out of our spice cabinet, but the 1.5 size jars are pretty small, and only fit all of the spices out of those teensy containers. So needless to say, I still have half empty spice bottles hidden around. The good news is I relocated those to a different place and at least now there aren't spice bottles falling out every time we reach for kosher salt...

My inspiration for this project came from GneissSpice:

I'm linking this project up at these wonderfully creative sites: