DIY Chevron Curtains Tutorial

Lately I have come to the realization that I have a problem.  When shopping for home decor (curtains, furniture, fabric, lamps, etc...  Who am I kidding, I do it with clothes too) I find things I love in stores and online, look at the price, and immediately think... WHAT?!  Who are they kidding?  It's not even lined! I can make that!  This happens several times a day, usually. The result is a list of projects a mile long, a house full of Goodwill furniture, and 25 trips to Home Depot.

That's pretty much the story with my DIY Chevron Curtains.  I'm in the process of creating a guest room/sewing room.  I say "creating" because we did not have a guest room in our previous house and I'm starting from nothing.  A completely empty room.  I decided the theme is going to be yellows and grays (are you realizing what room the side chair is for?) and started to look for curtains.  Ummm, yeah... I just can't do it.  $50 per panel or more at most stores.  Even Target curtains are in the $30 per panel range and that's not even a cool pattern.  Call me cheap, I don't care.  Time to hit up Pinterest for some DIY ideas.

In my search I came across Painted Faux Ombre Chevron Curtains from Owen's Olivia. I LOVE them! Time to break out the 3m painter's tape and make some chevrons!  Off to Home Depot!

Supplies:

• Curtains to paint (Mine were 2 leftover IKEA panels that were in my son's room at the last house)
• Paint (craft or house paint)
• Tape (I used 3M ScotchBlue Painter's Tape, 2" size... you will need 2 rolls if you don't reuse some tape from one panel to the next)
• A small roller and tray
• Fabric Medium (I used Martha Stewart Tintable Fabric Medium)
• Ruler
• Big drop cloth or some painter's plastic

Step 1: Tape off a boarder.
This step is optional but I like the look of a boarder on all the sides. Also, in the Owen's Olivia tutorial she mentioned they paint bled a little when she painted over the seams... so I avoided the seams. (Power Wheels school bus keeping me company to the left)

Step 2: Mark out your first row of chevrons.
I decided I wanted 4ish zig zags across my curtains. I measured the width of my curtains in between the taped boarder (54"), divided by 9 since that's how many points I would need to make 4 zig zags. That gave me 6. So I put a small dot with a washable fabric pencil every 6 inches. Then every other dot, I measured up 6" and put a dot there. This is where the points of my chevrons are. You can make your chevrons as close or as wide as you want. Looking at the pictures might clear that up a bit. (I promise that is the last of the math on this project)

Step 3: Begin taping your first row.
Start from the corner and make the inside points of your chevrons line up with your dots (look at the 2nd photo if that's confusing). Once you have them lined up, trim the edges into a nice clean point... like this. I just used the edges of the cross tape as a guide.

Step 4: Use strips of tape as spacers and tape the rest of your chevrons.

Congratulations... the hard part is over. Now it's just a matter of using tape as a spacer and adding row after row until you get to the other end of your panel. Remember to go back and trim your points like in step 3.

Step 5: Roll out some plastic and get ready to paint.
You can use whatever you want to protect your floors. I had a roll of painter's plastic in my garage. Tape everything down so it doesn't move on you.

Step 6: Mix fabric medium and paint and get rolling.
Follow the directions on the back (I eyeballed the measurements). Mixed everything in my paint tray and started rolling with a small foam roller.

Step 7: Keep rolling!
You are going to have a seriously sore butt tomorrow from all the squatting. Trust me.

(I look sad because my butt hurts)

Step 8: Peel off the tape.
I peeled pretty much immediately after I got done painting. A few spots were still damp. Didn't seam to make a difference.

FYI: This project uses a lot of painter's tape.

Step 9: Let them dry and heat set them with an iron. 

(I may or may not have done this step) Tee hee.

You're done!

And if you're wondering if they look painted... yes, they do.  And I love it! I think it looks very Anthropologie.  If you're not into the painterly look, I'd say do two coats of paint.  They'll probably be a little crunchy, but it's not like you're snugglin' with your curtains.  So who cares, right?

And my view down the hall when I walk in the front door :)

So if you're too cheap to shell out the bucks for "real" drapes, make paint you're own! 

Let's be friends!

Side Chair Makeover

In the last few posts I mentioned we moved.  This was a big deal.  It had been 7 years since I moved last and that move didn't really count. I was a carefree single girl finally moving in with my fiancé with my handful of kitchen items and a futon. Puh-leeeze. I could do that in my sleep now.  This was a real move.  Complete with two kids, and their stuff, and 7 years of stuff my husband and I had collected, and more stuff on top of that stuff. We were leaving the house we came home to on our wedding night and the house we brought both of our babies home to. It was a stressful week to say the least.


On top of the move, we showed up to our new house with a U-haul full of furniture only to find the previous occupant left the house a complete disaster.  Mess and smell on top of garbage and furniture all left for us to deal with.  There were points that day that I wanted to cry. What does this have to do with a chair makeover?  This chair was left amid the piles of garbage. Pretty much the highlight of that day... even in this state.

After we got semi settled, I made a trip to Home Depot for a few supplies and JoAnn's for the fabric.


Here's what I used:
• Light grit sandpaper
• Elmer's Wood Glue
• Elmer's Wood Filler Max
• 1 can of Kilz Spray Primer
• 2 cans of Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch Spray Paint
• Staple Gun and staples
• About 1/2 yard of fabric


Step 1: Remove the seat. (4 screws right under the seat)


Step 2: Fix any large repairs. I repaired the broken arm with wood glue and clamped that over night.

On top of a broken arm, there was a lot more damage to this chair (this is where the wood filler will come into play).  I thought about refinishing the wood first, but decided against it once I realized how damaged the wood was.  No stain is going to cover this up.

 

Step 3: Lightly sand the entire chair and wipe the dust off with a damp rag.

Step 4: Give the chair a light coat of spray primer.

It won't be completely white. That's fine.  Better to go light than to have drips.


Step 5: Fill in any missing chunks with wood filler. I'm guessing I could have done this before the primer but I still had some sanding to go so it didn't really matter.

Step 5 and a half: Not really step 6 since not everyone will have to do this, but my chair needed a lot of sanding. The finish was in bad shape and the wood filler was bumpy. So I went back and forth between sanding and priming sanding and priming... until I had a smooth finish. (The spray paint I used is in that picture)

Step 6: Reupholster the seat.  While the final coat of primer dried, I went inside and reupholstered the seat. Lay the seat face down on the wrong side of your new fabric and staple away! I just went right over the old fabric, stapling on opposite sides while making sure it was pulled tight.  This seriously takes like 10 minutes. : )


That's the old fabric... held on by tiny little nails.  Yup... not pulling those out.

I got my new fabric at JoAnn Fabrics.  It was $50/yard which is crazy! However, I had a 50% off coupon and I only got 3/4 yard.  So it came to about $18. Much better than $50 and I love it!

Staple, staple, staple. I made sure to line up my pattern so one of the circles fell right in the center of the chair. Optional, but something to keep in mind.

Step 7: Paint! In my experience many light coats gets the best results. Here's what coat 1 looked like.

Better to have missed spots than drips.  You can always spray it some more.

Here is my chair mocking me from the yard.  I wanted to bring it in so bad but I knew it had more drying time to go. I think I did 4-5 coats over several hours. All very light.

Step 8: Reattach your new seat and admire your work. Done!

So what do you think? Inspired to try it?

Let's be friends!

DIY Moroccan-Style Wall Stencil Tutorial

**UPDATE!  If you have any trouble making your walls snazzy, visit my FAQ post on this tutorial.  I got lots of questions, so there're all here for you should you need some help.**

I jazzed up my wall with a DIY Moroccan-style pattern. And, the best part about this project?... it was completely free.  One Pampers box and some leftover paint later and I really like my wall :)

Here's what you do.

1. Find a Moroccan-ish shape you like online and print it out whatever size you want (Google images is a good place to go).  The larger you go... the less work it is.  I had to tile mine onto 4 sheets of paper, then tape them together.  Don't worry about the design being all blurry if it is, you can fix that in a minute.  Once it's all taped, fold the paper in quarters and cut out your shape.  When you unfold it, you will have a symmetrical pattern even if it started off blurry.  Here is the shape I used if you want to do the same.

Originally I was going to add that center shape as well until I started tracing, and realized I was insane.

2. Trace your shape onto cardboard and cut it out.  This is where my Pampers box (and assistant) came into play.

3. Step 3 is an important one, and I think the reason I had no wonky pattern happening.  I taped a level to my stencil.  This way, I traced it onto the wall perfectly straight every time.  Worked out awesome.

4.  Pick a spot on your wall to start tracing lightly with a pencil.  I eyeballed where my stencil would end up on each end of the wall and made sure I started in a place that would have me end in a half pattern on each side.  Did that make sense?  It really doesn't matter.  I just preferred no tiny slivers on the sides.

(In these pictures I already went over some of my pencil lines with the paint)

5. Once you traced everything with a pencil, (took me a few nights while they snoozed) grab a small brush and go over the lines with paint.  That's it!

My lines are not perfect but no one is going to look that closely. :)

I'm sad to say that just a few weeks after I finished my wall... we sold our house and moved!  (Which explains the lack of posts in a while... and the crappy iPhone picture of the "after")  Oh well.  It was good practice and I will definitely be doing this again in our next house. I love how it turned out.

If you're in to easy and inexpensive DIYs, here's a few more I've done around my house.

  

Let's be friends!

DIY Screen Printing from Zip Screens™

Check out my rocker chick! We DIY screen printed her shirt with the help of Zip Screens which were sent to me thanks to my friend Katherine at Sew Woodsy.  She introduced me to FashionArtProjects.com and they sent me some cool stuff.  Check it out.

Can you imagine the size of a 4-year-old girl's eyes when packages full of sparkle glitter paint arrive in the mail? And then, I tell her "this is to paint your clothes".  Bad idea.  We had to paint immediately for I feared she might explode with excitement. Lucky for us, kid #2 was sleeping and the back porch wasn't too full of toys.  Time to craft.  My assistant is ready.

First step was to raid her drawers for some clothes to jazz up.  We found two T-shirts ripe for something funky. One pink, one green.

Next I cut up the Cheerios box to slide inside the shirts so the paint didn't bleed through.

Then, she picked her design.  The packages I got came with several to choose from. She picked "rocker chick"... oh yeah. It's pretty much like a huge sticker and the design is cut out but with a mesh or "screen" holding everything together. Peel off the sticker from it's clear backing.

Stick it on your shirt (or whatever you're painting). The directions recommend adding tape around the outsides of the screen/sticker, but we didn't and had no problems.

Choose your paint.  I gently nudged her into using white since it would show up the best on the green shirt.

Smush and drag the paint across the screen using the attached scraper card thingy. :)

Once that was done a very whiney convincing voice asked (over and over and over again) if we could add pink and purple on top.

We did, and I think this was our one mistake.  Since we took the time to open two more paints after the white paint was already applied, and then smush those paints around, the white had dried quite a bit.  When we went to take the screen/sticker off the shirt, some of the paint came with it.  Good thing for us the shirt was supposed to look worn and edgy.  

It just looks a little more worn and edgy now : ) She loves it and tells everyone, "I made this shirt!".

Here's shirt #2 in the making. With this one we did the white first and took the sticker off immediately.  Then, once it was fairly dry, she used a paint brush to add sparkle purple on top. Worked much better.

Sparkle-tastic.

I would definitely use Zip Screens again.  Kaley absolutely loved doing this project and thinks it's so cool she can wear her artwork. This would be a good project for a kid birthday party too... nice take home gift for the kiddies. You can buy Zip Screens at Walmart. Happy crafting.

Disclaimer: I was provided Zip Screens and the paint free of charge however, I was not compensated to write this post and my opinions are my own. :)

Let's be friends!