{Sewing Tip Tuesday} #15

I know I didn't have some genius tip to share last week. And I don't have one to share this week either. BUT, I do have a little tutorial and it involves sewing so that counts, right? I think so!

I made this comfy tank about a month ago and have been wanting to share it with you, but I every time I've worn this shirt I forgot to take pics. Call me lazy or whatever, but I finally got around to pics of it on.

I started with this $3.00 shirt I picked up from Walmart on clearance. I loved the stripes and I love gray.

So first thing I did was cut the collar out of it. I knew I was going to cut the sleeves off and I didn't feel like that banded collar would work without the sleeves. After I cut off the collar I folded the edge down and top stitched it with a double line.

Next I used a racer tank that I already had to draw out where I wanted to cut the sleeves off at. Cut them out and hem the arm holes with the same double stitching.

Now you have made a basic racer back tank from a long sleeved shirt. You could stop here, but I decided to add some ruffles on the back. Make it a little spicy!

I didn't really measure this part. I just cut some strips of fabric from the sleeves and gathered them. Then pinned them on the back of my tank, matching up the stripes as best I could.

The top stripe I sewed upside down first, then flipped it down and top stitched it. I did this so the unfinished edge wouldn't show up by my neck. The other 2 ruffles are partially hidden from the ruffle above it so it didn't really matter. But you can do what you feel looks best.

That's it! Put it on and strut your stuff!

I'm not entirely sold on the ruffles on the back, but I haven't heard anyone say anything negative yet, so I'm going with it for now. The only I thing I would change is that I wish I had known about this tip about sewing with knits before I had made this shirt. I feel like my seams are a little wavy and had I known how to fix that I would be happier. But, next time I will know. Overall, I'm still excited about it :)

Guess what else I'm excited about??? I received a national award for my photography at work!!!! This is the second time I have won one of these awards. Although I'm in a category with higher standards this time because of my experience with the company. Anyway, it's still nice to be recognized for your work once in a while. Yay!

DIY Faux Nail Head Trim

Happy Wednesday!!

Remember last week I showed you my new pillows for the living room chairs?
And I asked you if you saw any other DIY projects involving these chairs??? Do you see it yet???

I put a little faux nail head trim on them!

We bought these chairs on craigslist about 6 months ago. I've been thinking they needed a little pizzazz....something to spice them up. So I was walking through my favorite Dollar Tree one day and the silver thumb tacks caught my eye and my genius light bulb went off! Nail head trim was what they needed. Only I don't know anything about nail head trim or where to buy it....so thumb tacks it is!

How to:
Buy cheap thumb tacks from the dollar store.....I used 2 boxes
Press in with thumb to get each one started
Then lightly tap with a rubber mallet

And that's it!

Look at that sweet baby sunning in the window!!

My lines aren't perfectly straight. I had the occasional tack that bent that I had to remove with a staple puller. And my thumb was killing me so I did this a little bit at a time. But overall, I think it spiced up the chairs just enough!! I thought about doing it across that section under the cushion, but Mr. Perfect thought it would be too much.

Moral of the story......$2 {the cost of 2 packs of thumb tacks} can make a huge impact. Don't overlook dollar store finds :)

Tea Dyed Curtains

Blogging on a Monday......I feel like I haven't done this in FOREVER! Well I think I've finally gotten out of my little funk and I have the motivation to show you what all I've been working on. Hooray!

Today we are going to talk curtains. My living room curtains to be exact. If you remember, or if you are new here, let me refresh you with what curtains I made last winter.....

In December I had just painted my living room white with an orange accent wall and an orange alcove around my bay window. Then I got the idea to paint ombre striped curtains for the window. It didn't turn out the way I wanted but the hubs wouldn't let me take them down because I had "worked so hard on them". Whatevs. I've pretty much hated them all along. Here's what they looked like....

Ok, not the worst in the world, but they haven't grown on me. They now reside in my fabric closet with other fallen projects.

To replace them I thought something simple would be better. Something crisp and clean. I thought about plain white, but with the white walls around that little alcove and all the trim being white I just couldn't go ALL white. I needed a little contrast. So I tried something new that I haven't done before and I dig it. Tea dyeing! Here's how the window looks now...

You'll see better pics in a sec. They didn't turn out quite as long as I wanted because I hemmed about an inch too much, but seriously, once you've done all the work, who would change it? Not this chick! Besides I have a pair of chairs that sit in front of that window that I moved for these pictures.

So, how do you tea dye? It's pretty simple, so if you don't already know I'll give you a quick run down of what I did.

I started with a bedsheet from Kmart. They're cheap and big and the sides are already hemmed {bonus!}. I think I used a queen sheet for this window.

Now on the the dyeing....

Step 1: Boil water in a large pot {This is about all I can do in the kitchen btw lol}
Step 2: Add about 20 tea bags

Step 3:  Let the bags stoop for about 20 minutes
Step 4:  Remove bags, well, the ones that didn't fall in
Step 5:  Put whatever fabric, or portion of fabric, you want into the pot
Step 6:  Let it sit for, I don't know, about 20 minutes

Step 7: Remove sheet from pot and let air dry

I don't really have that many crazy weeds in my yard. I did in this picture, but things have changed in that area recently, so don't judge.


After the sheet dried, I cut it in half and hemmed the cut edge. Then I had to hem a little in length. I hemmed it on the top end so there was a little extra fabric at the top for my hooks to hold on to. Give the whole thing some ironing and that's it!

Whatcha think? Oh and go back at look at the old picture again......notice anything else different? The wall color maybe? I just wasn't loving the first orange color I painted, so I changed it up. This new orange is a little darker and not so "don't shoot me in the woods" orange.

And just for fun.....

I seriously can NOT get over how stinkin cute she is!!! She melts my heart every day. I <3 her

Freezer Paper Stenciling Tutorial

You all know I just had my 2nd wedding anniversary. And you saw my gorgeous anniversary band Mr. Perfect bought. Well I don't believe I told you what I did for him. His main gift was this baseball gift basket I put together with tickets to the Royals vs. Yankees game. We had a blast! But there was something else....

Something a little funny and kinda an inside joke, but I'm gonna tell you about it anyway.

A couple weeks before the big anniversary, Mr. Perfect and I were looking online to see what the 2nd anniversary gift was. The traditional was cotton.

Me: (listing off various cotton gifts described online) Babe, it says clothes, linens, napkins, a bunch of stuff that doesn't sound like anniversary gifts.

Mr Perfect: Like a t-shirt that says "all I got for my 2nd anniversary was this lousy t-shirt".

And then we both laughed until we had tears coming out our eyes and couldn't breathe. See, so it's kind of an inside joke, but you might chuckle a little at it anyway. But seriously, after a joke like that, I couldn't not make a shirt that said that!!

I decided to make this my first try at using freezer paper to stencil something. I printed off on the computer what I wanted it to say and gathered my supplies.

I had decided to do 2 t-shirts that were matching so it could be a "his and hers" type thing. Plus, if I screwed one up, there would always be another one.

I cut 2 pieces of freezer paper the size of my printed paper and layered them on top. I figured I could cut 2 stencils at a time to save me from spending an entire week cutting out words for my stencil.

Then I got to work cutting out my stencil with an exacto knife. If you cut out words like this, you should probably rent a movie.....just sayin. Here's my stencils all cut out.

And here is the pile of dots and such for the inside of the "O", "A", "R" and "D". Can't forget about those!

Next all you do is iron your stencil to your t-shirt. Then paint! I used a sponge type brush and dabbed the paint on there. To make the shirt washable, make sure you mix fabric medium into your paint before you start applying it.

After it is all dry, tear the stencil off your shirt and you are done!

They both turned out great! So he got the navy colored shirt and I got the teal one.

Now here's how he reacted when he opened it.....

We were sitting there, each of us with a shirt sized box in front of us. We had both said this box we were giving each other wasn't the real gift (mine was the baseball gift basket and his was the ring). I think we were both thinking the same thing......that the other one had a gotten a t-shirt with that saying on it. He opened my gift first. And he didn't laugh very much or anything. I thought it was weird. He thought it was hysterical when we joked about it. So I opened his gift. He had made a t-shirt for me that said the same thing! He had printed on an iron-on transfer and just ironed it on a shirt. Not nearly as crafty as me, but hey, gotta hand it to the guy for making me a shirt!

I'm sure you are tired of my babbling and reading about my inside joke with my hubs. Hope I didn't bore you to death! On a crafty related note....I kinda like the freezer paper stenciling. Might be doing more with that here soon!
 

{How Pinteresting} #10

It has been awhile since I've done one of these posts hasn't it? So sorry! It has returned!

Here's my "pin"spiration photo for the week. It comes from Mommy in the Mountains

source

I think that rug is just stinkin cute! Our front porch needs some MAJOR lovin. It's so bare and not welcoming. We might as well hang a sign on the door that says "buzz off". I have tried to spruce it up with a cute wreath, but, ya know, they only do so much. We currently have one of those small, stiff, mats you can buy at Walmart or wherever that has 3 faded palm trees and the word Welcome. But, I live in Kansas, not California. That rug is on its last leg for sure! So into the trash it goes...

You remember me going to Ikea? I bought a plain rug to put on the front porch, with the intention of painting it. I can make it cute, without some cheesy palm trees. And it's actually a decent size without having to break the bank to buy it. Score!

Before I show you mine, let me just say.....I KNOW chevron is overdone. I KNOW ombre is overdone. But whatever, I still like it all anyway. And on another side note...all my pictures have a slight red ring around them. Uh, that happened in photoshop because I forgot to reset a setting. My bad. Ignore it because I'm not going back to redo all these pictures lol.  Anyway here's my rug

 I just planted the flowers a couple days ago so those really dress up the place too! And ignore the glare on the glass and harsh shadows....my house faces south....allllll day long.

Wanna make your own?? It's simple.

Start with your rug. Make sure you do this project on the carpet in your living room like I did, just don't tell your husband {hehe}  .......this is one of those moments where I'm sorta happy he doesn't read my blog......

Tape off your design, or use a stencil, whatever you want to do. Let me just warn you, these scratchy, high pile rugs are SO hard to tape. Like, the tape doesn't stick at all. It's barely just sitting on top of the rug.

Then paint! I used a nice stiff brush and tried to really work the paint down in the fibers.

Peel the tape off and voila!

What do you think? I love it. Mr. Perfect loves it. The kid has already wiped her feet on it. Guess that's what it's for!

I heart Pinterest