Curtains Part III

Yep, that's right! I did some more curtain workings. Remember my first round of curtains? OR how about my Second round of curtains? Well in case you forgot or care to look back, have a go at my specially made for you "hyper-links" :) And in case you hadn't noticed, I really like to have/make curtains. There really is something about them that can set a mood or give a home like feel to a regular house.

Well whether your read my "part II" or not, I will mention it here again. My last challenge that has been wracking my brain is these lovely curtains. . . .

These suckers came with the apartment (and for those of that have been in my house recently, just ignore the fact that this is a really old picture, and that arrangement is totally different now, especially since the coffee table in this picture is now my window seat bench :).

As much as these curtains are do-able, and are actually very nice in the winter cuz they are thicker, they also have a very "old style" kind of a 70's look. And nothing against the 70's, cuz we also have nice bright green shag from the same era, which is so soft and fluffy, but these curtains needed a little extra something.

So, long story short, my wonderful husband had the brilliant idea of adding another layer. Something thinner than the already thicker layer, but still curtains so I could still let in light, but still partly block out the cold.

Probably total for both windows, we spent around $20 for material and ribbons and paper clips (which is explained later), which I am pretty sure we wouldn't have been able to find curtains that cheap for these two big windows!

 So here is the outside layer we made. It has see through shear like material in the middle with a little thicker off white color on the very top and the bottom and then a ribbon at the seams as seen in the pictures.

 Here's the bottom area.. . .

And here is the top part. Oh and the apartment conveniently came with tracks and loops for another curtain layer, so we got paper clips to attached the curtain to the loops and it works great! :)

So there we have it!

Next week we have my lovely husband's birthday coming up along with family coming into town, so I might try to post a little earlier in the week, and if I get it done I might share a little of birthday presents I have up my sleeve, but in case I don't get them done, I share some more fall crafts I finished. So yeah life.

And...I mustin forget!! Tomorrow my hubby is working, which means I will indulge you with another one of my lovely "Sun-Up Saturdays!" So don't forget to come by for one of those!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a most STUPENDOUS wonderful day!

Curtains Part II

Have I mentioned that I like curtains? Well I do, I really do. I just think there is something magical about a room with curtains. OK, maybe not quit to the magical level, but I really like how it makes a room feel more welcome, more cozy, more home like. I also rather enjoy adding curtains in other areas to add a little life or color to the room or even better to hide things. So long story short, even though this wasn't very a long story, here are some curtains I have added to our apartment to add some life. . . .

Remember these ones? These are in my little girls room, and I talked more about how I made them in THIS post.

 Then I needed to do something different about our bedrooms curtains. There were some curtains already present when we moved in, but they were these super ugly ones, and I like it when curtains make the room feel warm and welcoming, not disgusting, so I changed them up a bit, and now they match our bed spread.

 Here is a look with them closed and it is brighter outside than in. I wanted to do white so I could still get some natural lighting without it making it too hot.

 Here is a better view of it when it was dark outside. Since the curtain rod is a goofy one from the old ugly one, and I didn't want to change things up too drastically (or spend too much money), I just safety pinned the material around the rod, so it will be easy to put back together when we move

Then if I want to really let in some natural lighting I can pull the white back and tie it off and then it looks so pretty, doesn't that just feel so welcoming, just by looking at it? Aw. . . . :)

 Then I have our lovely kitchen curtains that I talked more about HERE as well. But I wanted to add a little more to the kitchen, and of course had to still stick with the matchy matchy.

 We have this lovely shelf that we have added because our cupboards are so numerous they are too tiny for most of or at least a lot of our food supply. So we have this lovely get up. But it looks kind of. . . I don't know the word for it, but it just needs some life added to it. If this was tucked away in a cupboard or a pantry away from normal pathway sight I probably wouldn't care, but since it is right in the kitchen I needed something. So I put together some matchy matchy curtains for it

 It is the same material as the window curtains shown above. What do you think?

 And here is another angel look for it. I think it adds a nice little touch to the room, or maybe I am just curtain crazy :)

 Then last but not least, the bathroom. The only window in this room is in the shower so it doesn't really need a cutsie, fun curtain cuz it isn't really seen and it would probably just get wet and ruined. So I decided to make some for the shower. The blank white one was just too plain and boring, so I added the blue and green which matches perfectly with the colors in the bathroom, and if you didn't noticed it is also the same material as the kitchen's curtains. . .yeah for curtains and for matchy matchy. (and all these curtains didn't cost me one extra penny, I just used some extra random scraps and material that I already had, yeah for cheap projects!!)

And then we have our living room. It came with these big long curtains. They are alright, but I sometimes still don't like the old almost ugly look they have. But I do like that they are easy to open, cuz you just pull the string and they slide open on a track. But maybe one of these days I will add something to it, just to give it that much more life. . .we will have to see on this one and you will be sure to hear about it when I do come up with a plan for these.

Anyway, thanks again for stopping by on this lovely Money Saving Monday. I hope you have a great night.

Until next time. . . .

Curtains

I don't know about you, but I easily get sick of the regular plain windows, that just have blinds. To me there is nothing like a house that can be made to look more like a home by adding a touch of curtains!

Well since we are still in the "renting an apartment" stage of our lives I didn't want to get too carried away in screwing in curtain rods and doing things that might upset the landlords in the long run- so here is my really simple and also cheap curtain job that makes me smile and maybe some day my landlord too, cuz we didn't put any annoying holes in for this.

Here is the window in my little girls room.

And here is a little closer look. I just hemmed the edges, made a bigger loop hemmed edge on top, added some ties and there you go! Then for the top part I used patch squares that I have been using to make things match in her room better, sewed together enough squares to go across the length of the window, plus about two more feet, and then added the bottom layer (which is actually the top rim that I cut off of a twin sheet).

Now, as mentioned before I didn't have to buy any curtain rods or doing any annoying mounting of them either- so here is my special secret for doing it all:

Instead of using a curtain rod, I used a fake flower stem that was for an assortment of like 6-8 flowers and then just took off the flowers, (used them else where of course) made it straight, put the curtains on and then tapped them up on each end to give them a good hold!

Then for the  top layer I just used thumb tacks and pushed them in on the top side of the window's trim so that you can't see the tiny holes when I will some day take these down when we move. Because I made this extra longer than the window, it allowed me to give it a little more of a ruffled look as I pinned it up. 

Now here is a look at my lovely kitchen window, I put up these curtains in the same basic way as the other window:

Here I tapped up, again using flower stem things as the rod

and here I again pinned up the top part giving it a nice ruffled look! And the nice thing about having this shorter layer on top is it hides the ugly "flower stem rod" I randomly made and it really adds to making it more home-like!

Anyway-hope you have a wonderful curtain-home-like-friendly day!

Until next time....