Rad weekends.

So far, this weekend's been pretty great. 

Although the weather was not in our favor for the weekend, we used a little free time and dry time to head up to Ikea last night. We picked up a few more yards of fabric to finish up curtains in the new place, and then we had a delicious dinner at the Cracker Barrel. Before doing any of that, though, we went to Hobby Lobby and met our lucky day -- we were hoping to pick up some acrylic paints and canvas and it was all on sale. 

After dinner we spent a few hours painting. It was so relaxing and wonderful to have a nice creative outlet for a few hours. Part of the painting interest came because we needed a little more art in the new apartment. I'm a big believer in not owning art that everyone else owns, so what I have is a little of everything. I've got a couple of wonderful drawings I bought from a guy at Pike's Place in Seattle; a couple of photographs from a woman I met at the Maker Faire in Austin; a couple of photos from graduating seniors at Cornell selling from their shows; and finally, some of my own paintings. It's nice to add a few more of our own work and it's interesting to see how differently Erik and I are in our styles and visions. 

We slept in this morning, and since I got up before Erik, I got about an hour of reading in before we both showered and headed to the library. That place is an utter zoo on Saturdays because our city cut its Friday hours, and it makes me both excited and sad that Saturdays are so bad -- excited because people are obviously using the library and sad because people are obviously using the library but are being deprived of more time in which to do so. It overburdens the poor people working at that branch who already don't seem thrilled to be there. Alas!

After the library, we went back to Hobby Lobby and picked up some more canvas since it was on sale and we have plenty of paint left over from last night. We then did a trip to Target for a dvd (I've suddenly decided I wanted to try the 30 day shred workout) and Good Will for 2 bags of donated goodies. A lovely and healthy Japanese lunch was in order, and I picked up a salad for dinner tonight, too. If there's one thing I will *really* miss about Austin is the wonderful fast food Japanese we have here that is actually good for you. Yum.

Toss in some more cleaning, as well as some blogging and reading, and plans for more painting and a movie tonight, and so far, we're off for a winning weekend. I'll report back tomorrow, of course, but for me, the weekend is only Saturday since I volunteer all afternoon on Sundays. I have *the best* volunteer gig in the world, and I've been there for a whole year now. When we move, that's another place I will definitely miss more than anything. 

If you're curious, right now I'm reading The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubas III. Yes, it's an Oprah pick but I actually didn't know that until I picked it up. My best friend recommended it to me, and so far, I'm digging it. 

While the sun has decided to come out from hibernation, so has the humidity. We're going to be hibernating instead.

Crafty (& proof of my cheapness)

As I've been cleaning out the old apartment, I've stumbled upon some old gems. Things I've put in places that are labeled action needed, but as of now, no action has been taken. I swear some day I will do every project that I intend to do.

Today's find was from my wedding. Whenever I tell people I got married in Las Vegas, they assume it means it was quick and lonely. Not so much. We actually had an awesome wedding surrounded by both Erik's entire family and my entire family, as well as many of our close friends. We kept our guest list small, and we were incredibly lucky to have had 40 people show up to celebrate with us. 

The big reason I chose Vegas was because of how low stress and high on fun it'd be. I also knew I could keep it quite inexpensive. We found the perfect place to do it, and we had to actually have very little input on the way that the wedding would work. Aside from a few minor glitches and disappointments, we were so thrilled; we knew these small things were so unsubstantial and insignificant, and really, quite funny looking back.

Something that drove me nuts the entire time of planning was finding the right invitations. As much as I love my friends and family, there was no way I was spending $20 on invitations for each one of them, especially when I thought they all looked tacky, ugly, boring, or like every other wedding invite I had ever seen.

I decided to make my own.

After debating for eons about whether or not to send a "save the date" invite, we decided to go for it simply because we were having a wedding outside of our home states. Plus, we were getting married on a Thursday evening (hello, discount and hello people needing only to take 2 days off work to enjoy a 4-day weekend in Vegas!) so we wanted to give people plenty of time. 

Our wedding colors were red and black. Not coincidentally also the colors of playing cards. We added a honey colored yellow, too, to make it less stark and more weddingesque, I suppose.

With the help of one of my bridesmaids, a few hours, and a few trips to local crafteries, I made the perfect save-the-date cards myself. They were small, and we included magnets on the back. The total cost to do it myself was SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than paying for tacky ones. 

Since those were so well received, I decided to go ahead and do the actual wedding invitations myself, as well. After a little bit of drama on the paper -- I had chosen a different design but could not acquire enough of the apparently retired style -- I was able to find something that spoke well to what we were all about in this wedding -- fun. Everyone invited received one of these pretty pups except for our wedding party. I don't have any remaining pictures of what theirs looked like, but the background paper was not the same, and it was instead bright blue with cowboys all over. I was moving to Texas and all.

It's funny now that a lot more of my friends have been getting married or have been planning weddings. I continue to tell them that it's truly not worth going into debt over nor is it worth choosing to do something stressful. My wedding was incredible because I spent so little time worrying about it or planning out how it could be perfect. We didn't even have a place for dinner figured out until a couple of weeks beforehand, and we told all of our guests about it about a week before they left. Everyone had the opportunity to go, have a mini vacation, and only had two commitments to attend. Sure, we did a lot of other things but none of it was scheduled; my bridesmaids and I were swimming in the hotel pool just a couple hours before the ceremony and honestly, who cared that I didn't spend hours on my makeup or hair? No one would remember that anyway.

I often think about how I'd love to go into business making invitations. There's an abundance of ugly and expensive out there when there really needn't be. I think I'm an exception, though. I think most people have a dream and an image and they can buy it. Me? My memories are in the fact I got to do it ALL myself and make it entirely my own. I hope some day someone wants me to help them do it, too. 

(I assure you my invites were not this crooked. This is thanks to the marvels of technology and my desire to scan and edit photos quickly rather than accurately).

Sewing for the clueless.

When we signed the lease to the new place, we were told we'd have to get our own curtains since the ones in there were of sentimental value to a previous owner. Not a big deal. We thought we'd go to the store, pick up some cheaply, and move on. Oh contraire! The windows in the apartment aren't a normal size, and purchasing curtains is very pricey when you're picking up 8 or so.

The next logical step was for me to put on my craft prowess and do it myself. Although one of my goals this year is to learn how to sew on a sewing machine, the lack of sewing machine in my life makes it difficult. How do you make curtains without a sewing machine, you ask? With a little elbow grease, you can do it. Just note, too, that you can make them lined if you want, but because I used white fabric and take care to make things look even, I didn't.

Tools:

- fabric (style and size to your taste and needs)

- bondable webbing

- ribbon

- an iron

- scissors

- measuring stick/tape

First, pick your window. I purposely chose one that was a little differently sized. Once you pick one, measure the length and width of the window. Then, measure the fabric, ensuring you leave between 6-8 inches extra both length and width wise from the window itself (you'll want it to make two panels and to tie back, as well as ensure the curtain rod will fit at the top). Cut your fabric, and don't worry too much about cutting a perfectly straight line. 

Then, set yourself up at a clean, long table or ironing board. You will want to put your fabric face down. Have an iron at its highest heat setting ready to go.

Next, make yourself a fold that will be large enough to slide your curtain rod through, plus an inch or so of slack to be safe. Make it as even as you want, though since it's at the rod end, it probably doesn't matter if it's not perfect.

And iron the fold you've just made. It makes the webbing much easier to iron in the next step if you pre-iron. 

After you've ironed the crease, measure out the webbing to reach end to end under the fold. I found it much easier to actually do this in pieces. Instead of cutting a long piece of webbing, I cut 2-3 shorter pieces. 

Next, you will want to put the webbing as the center of the sandwich between the fabric you just ironed to a crease. Since this will be your seam, you will want to make sure you've left yourself enough room between the top of the webbing and the top of the crease to slide in your rod. This is why it is a good idea to have a little slack room - having more space for your rod to slide in will give the top more movement and make it easier to slide your curtains open. Your webbing will likely be closer to the edge of that fabric rather than near the fold you ironed. Once that's in place, iron the sandwich you've made. 

Voila! You've just made the top of your curtain without sewing a thing. 

Once you're confident that the webbing is holding (and it does it very quickly), you can make the long sheet into two panels. If you want to keep it one long curtain you can, but you will likely make something that isn't as flow-y or moveable. If you're having trouble with the webbing sticking, make sure your iron is clean and at its highest setting. I had stick problems when I had it set at 3 or 4 rather than 7 or 8.

Start the process of creating two panels by folding your long sheet in half length-wise and cut it in half. Again, you don't have to be perfect, but the smoother and straighter the cut now, the less you have to perfect ironing later.

Now, take one of your panels and put it back on your flat surface. You will cut a small slit directly beneath the top of the curtain (where you have just made the seam). This allows you to more easily fold and iron down the side.

Like the top, you will crease a seam. Since you are doing this simply for aesthetic purposes, you can make them if you wish or you can stop your process here. I like the clean look, so I prefer to "sew" the sides. The size of your seam depends entirely on your window's width, and if you left a couple of extra inches (as in step 1), then you can make your seam anywhere between 1/4 and 1 inch. Fold and iron. 

Again, cut and insert your webbing. If you're making a smaller seam (which I did on the other side of this panel), you will definitely want to cut your webbing into smaller sizes so that you can ensure a smooth iron/seam melding. 

Repeat this process on the other side of this panel, as well as on the other panel. Do not do it on the bottom of either of them, though, without measuring them precisely. I chose not to do the bottom at all, since the length ends up perfect (see the step where you cut the large sheet in half) and it allows more movement. If your bottom end isn't perfect for some reason, you can fix that after you hang them up with some simple scissor snips.

Grab your curtain rod now and slide your panels both on. Since you've left slack room, they won't fit on there without bunching at the top. That's what you want!

Finally, hang those puppies back up onto the window. Check the bottoms to make sure they're even enough for your taste and preferences, and either leave them be, alter, or iron on a bottom seam.

Ta da! You've just made yourself a set of curtains without sewing a thing. And since you're making them, they can be altered to any length, shape, size, or design. You can pick up some ribbon, too, or add in a wall hook to tie back the curtains when you want to let in the sunlight, since you've actually created two panels. 

Total cost: 

Fabric: $7.99/yard (my window here required about 1.5 yards)

Ribbon: $2/spool for the pricier stuff

Bondable web: $2 

Much cheaper, much more customizable, and more satisfying by doing it yourself. And you don't have to feel too guilty about changing them when you wish!

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