Holiday curtains!

I got back into sewing this year by making my first curtains for Christmas.  I've now decided that this is the year that I am going to make holiday curtains each month for my kitchen window. Last month was poinsettia fabric:

... and now we're on to Valentine's day! Pink hearts! <3

To make these I buy a yard of fabric and a spool of matching sewing thread if I don't already have the color I want. This usually runs between $5-$10, (and less than $5 with coupons/deals/sales)!

To make the curtain a foot tall I cut my fabric 17" in height to account for the hems.

I iron the hems about a half inch fold and sew those on all 4 sides. I then iron the top and bottom hems on a 2" fold and sew those.

On the top hem, to make a slot for the curtain rod (mine is a very small rod, make sure to account for the size) I sew 1" from the topside of the curtain. Slide the curtain rod through the middle opening and it's ready to hang!

I made this tonight in about 1 hour.  Very fast and easy project for beginner sewing!  I've already bought my St. Patrick's Day fabric for next month!! I'm excited for that one too!!

 It's always nice to be able to change the scenery and have new things to appreciate in your home, especially when it is things you have made!

Happy Crafting!
Jessica

A Valentine Sign

My inspiration was this Pinterest pin.  I went to Michael's and got the ribbon for $2, 2 red wooden hearts for 29 cents a piece, a white paint sharpie and some red glitter glue. Very inexpensive project! <3 I also saw the larger wooden hearts used in the original idea there too for $1, but these ones were much cheaper and already painted.


The first step I did was the names.  I played with fonts and found the one I liked the best was Minya Nouvelle.  So I printed out the names in size 36 and taped them on top of the hearts to use this method of name painting. With the names taped in position I used a ball point pen and traced the outline of the names, indenting the wood.  Remove the paper and use the paint sharpie to paint the names inside the indentation.  Mine required about 3 coats of paint.

Once the names dry you can use the red glitter around the edges of the hearts.  This is self-explanatory. :)

For the finishing touches I cut a 5" and 12" piece of ribbon and fired up the glue gun.  Hot glue the 5" ribbon between the 2 hearts in the middle.  Use this technique on the 12" ribbon to make the bow.  (Pretty much the bunny ears bow tie method)  Hot glue the 2 ends of the bow to the top heart and voila! Your Valentine Sign!

I love that you can add more hearts for the whole family and it is a cute personalized decoration for the home!

Happy Crafting!
~Jessica