It’s time for Tuesday Tutorials, y’all!
So, I’m going to make this a thing. Like a real thing.
No, seriously.
I know it’s unheard of for me. I’ll be the first to admit that I have commitment issues.
Every Tuesday? That sounds super professional of me. Maybe I’ll surprise us all and stick to that. Disclosure: no promises are being made on this.
I’ll be forming posts like these that show a step-by-step tutorial of projects for the home. It’ll save you time, hopefully money, and might even provide you some laughter with all my “blonde” moments of figuring stuff out in unconventional and completely illogical ways.
If you read my Instagram and Facebook post from last Tuesday (4/3/18), you’ll remember that I mentioned featuring guest posts for these #tuesdaytutorials on my website and social media accounts. If you have a DIY project of your own that you’d love to share, contact me with your ideas and you can have your projects and stories featured here for others to see! All you need are some words explaining the process (humor encouraged), pictures and/or videos, links to supplies for the readers and any information about yourself that you’d like to include (name, website, story…as little or as much about yourself as you want can be included). I’m SO excited for this and I hope you are too. This is a chance for anyone and everyone to dig into their creative side and share it with others. So, get with me!
And now for the curtains…
I have never had a project feel TOO easy before this one. I can assure you that if I can do this (or any project for that matter), you most certainly can as well. It was inexpensive and fairly easy to put together. And it involved zero skills in sewing. I don’t have anything against sewing, but I don’t have one easily accessible, so I’ll leave sewing projects out of these tutorials for now. I’m sure they’ll pop up in the future somehow.
Pictured below is the “before” setting of a corner in our living room. Last Fall, we repainted the living area from a dark brown (yuck) to this brighter grey color (love!).
- BEFORE
I sold the pillows even though I loved them because I knew they wouldn’t match and later regretted this decision after realizing I could have just bought cute, burlap pillow covers to zip over them. *Sigh*….this was my first mistake, but fortunately I had another realization that I had 039482039482 pillows in 15 different colors that we have somehow managed to adopt over the years. At some point I will actually go upstairs and get them so I can put pillow covers on them. No one really sits in this chair anyway so I’ll probably get to it in another 5 years or so.
Do you know how hard it is to take quality photos when you constantly have pets in the way? I even vacuumed for this shot and everything. Sheesh.
OKAY. Here is a list of supplies you need and where to get them:
- Canvas Painter’s Drop Cloth: I got mine at Menards Home Improvement store, but it was simply because I was there already getting other things. You can easily find this on –> Amazon
- Curtain Clips: Again, Amazon . Hint: Click on these links to view the individual items. I am not being sponsored by Amazon and I feel like I’m supposed to say that. I’ll let you know if that ever becomes a thing. Anyway, there are white curtain clips in Amazon land with which I thought was good to know. Also, it is well worth getting the 42-pack of the curtain clips if you plan on putting up similar curtains throughout your home.
- Scissors: You can probably find a pair of these in your kid’s crayon box or in the junk drawer you never open.
- Dryer: found near the washer in either a dungeon-like basement or a mystical space called, “The Laundry Room.”
Oh, and one more thing to add: you probably want to have measuring tape too. I wanted to make these curtains longer than the old ones because I love the way curtains look when they touch the floor. I was lazy and couldn’t find our measuring tape so I just thought I could line up the drop cloth next to my old curtains, estimate the amount of length needed to add and simply cut. In doing that I found out that the second half of the drop cloth I cut off wasn’t going to be long enough for my window to add a second panel. So now I have to buy an additional drop cloth piece to add my second panel. However, I was still able to use the remaining drop cloth from this pack for another window, so it ended up working out for me fortunately.
You can see the folded edge at the top on the drop cloth in the photo above. I wanted to have a a top layer of this drop cloth folded down as such to create a cozy look. AKA: It’s a trend I saw on Pinterest and I never would have thought to do that by myself.
After the dilemma of no measuring tape, I realized that my drop cloths were super wrinkly (see unevenness and wrinkles in photo below. Yikes!). So the dryer came into play here (above) as I tossed it in and turned on the wrinkle release setting for a few minutes. This works perfect….except for the fact that I probably should have done this before cutting it into two separate panels as both came out with some slight frays on the ends. Oops….oh well. I’m probably the only one who would ever notice that anyway. I don’t think anyone visiting our home is going to judge me for slightly frayed ends (I hope?).
You can see here in the above photo that my unit of measurement is my hand length for folding the top of the drop cloth. I ended up doubling this and making it two hand-lengths folded over before placing the curtain clips on.
How many curtain clips to add?? I had the same question. Answer is: doesn’t really matter- just estimate an even amount of length in between each clip and add at least five per panel to make it look decent. I actually added a total of nine curtain clips for one panel but I may or may not need to subtract some when I eventually add on my second curtain panel. Whatever looks best to you is going to be what you should go with.
BAM. Curtains are finished!! Not touching the floor like I wanted but there are no wrinkles and you can’t even notice the frays. I do somewhat wish that these were white drop cloths rather than that tan/burlap color….but then again, it’s growing on me. If I ever change this (likely) I will have to do another post on that. My goal for our home is to “simplify” the decor. I loved the old curtains but they were honestly just too “noisy” with all the intricate design. At least, they were too much for me.
Y’ALL, I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS POST AS MUCH AS I LOVED CREATING IT!
I have absolutely no idea why it took me so long to publish because this post took approximately 40ish minutes to type up. I hope it was helpful or that you at least found some humor along the way!
Do you have a fun, DIY project you want to feature on my blog?! Please get with me and let’s collaborate!
Comment, share, like, send some love… 😉
Yours Truly,
Kelsey
Farmhouse on Five Mile 