The year I went off to college, my parents left our home state of Texas and retired to the Florida Keys. They were too young to be officially retired, but thought of their new relaxing life as retirement nonetheless. Then life changed, as life tends to do, and they decided to move to Tennessee to be closer to my mother’s aging parents.

Going ‘home’ for me as an adult isn’t really going ‘home.’ My parents live in a gorgeous house, but it is in a teeny little town with little more than a McDonald’s and a Walmart. Their little Tennessee town seems like it’s on a different planet than my hometown of Austin, Texas. Things here are just so…strange.

I never feel comfortable out and about in their town, but I feel more comfortable than ever inside their home. Although the furnishings (other than the antique grandfather clock and armoire I lust after) are totally different than the ones I grew up with, they are warm and welcoming, just like Mom and Dad.

Every time I walk into their home, I am drawn to the custom window treatments that cover the breakfast room windows. They are simple, yet classy and unique.

Sorry for the lousy photos throughout this post. I used a point and shoot camera for these instead of my normal DSLR.

I check the window treatments out during each visit, trying to figure out how best to replicate them in my own home. During this trip, I finally figured out that all I needed was a glue gun and a safety pin. Seriously, it’s that easy folks. Let me show you how!

SUPPLIES:
Home Dec width (54″) fabric – you’ll need 2 1/2 times your window width
Scissors
Iron
Glue gun or fabric glue
Safety Pin

Cut a 7″ width strip off the length of the short edge of your fabric and set that aside. You’ll be using that piece in a bit.

With your large piece of fabric, fold in half so that the raw edges with the printed fabric information (not the edges cut at the fabric store) are together at the top. This is likely how your fabric came off the bolt, so just make sure that the upper edges are even. Press the fold so that it creates a nice straight line.

Next, open your fabric and press in every side by 1/2″. You’ll do this on the top and the sides.

Fold your fabric back in half lengthwise at the first crease mark you made. All of your raw edges should be folded inside the piece of fabric.

Using your glue gun or fabric glue, seam the short sides of the fabric together. This will essentially create a long rectangle with an open top.

Here’s where you have a decision to make. You can make the fabric tabs like the ones in the curtains above or you can use drapery rings to hang the curtain from the rod. If you want to use drapery rings, you can skip down to where I put a *** in the post. If you want to use the tabs, continue with the directions as written.

Grab the 7″ wide strip you set aside earlier, and cut three 8″ long pieces out of it. You should end up with three small pieces that are 7″ wide and 8″ long.

Go back to your ironing board and turn in the long edges 1/2″ on each of the small pieces. Then fold the long edges together so that the width of each piece is 2 1/2.” The sides of each piece will slightly overlap on the back. You just need to play around with it a bit to get it to work.

Then, fold each small piece in half so the raw edges meet and press a crease. You’ll end up with three small pieces measuring about 2 1/2″ wide and 4″ long (when folded in half).

Go back to your large piece of fabric and find the center of the open side. With about 2 1/2″ of a short piece above the open side, glue the short piece in place.

Glue the other two short pieces in the same way, but space them so that these two tabs will hang on the outer edge of the curtain. Use your measuring tape or ruler. I just eye-balled the spacing for this tutorial, and you’ll notice later that I didn’t space them far enough apart.

(***Welcome back, drapery ring users!) Close the top seam with your glue gun or fabric glue.

Your curtain is now ready to hang! You can hang it as is and I think it looks perfectly delightful. Fuss with the folds a bit, fluff them out, and you are good to go.

Or, you can take it one step further, which you is what I would do. 😉 Visually divide your curtain into three horizontal sections. Pinch the top of the bottom third and bring it up to the top of the middle third.

Use your safety pin on the backside of the fabric to pin the little pinch into place. You could be totally fancy schmancy and use a needle and thread to tack it in place, but why would you go through that effort when you could just use a safety pin? Yep, that’s how I roll.

My mother always told me that 95% of window
treatments is the fluffing, and she is absolutely right about that. Pull and tuck and fold and fluff until you get them exactly how you want them.

I think mine turned out really great – especially for $3/yard fabric, a glue gun, and a safety pin. Dare I say they look better than the ones that were custom made?

Hanging next to my mother’s window treatment.

With using nothing but a glue gun and a safety pen, I think the Nester would be proud.

Does this window treatment work for you? It sure works for me! Visit Works for Me Wednesday over at We Are That Family to see more WFMW fun.

I have a new obsession with quail eggs.

I totally blame Kimba. She posted this gorgeous wreath on her blog, A Soft Place to Land, last week, and I have been unable to get it out of my mind ever since.

Urban Farmhouse

I love everything about it. I love the pine straw wreath. I love the large amount of eggs used in the design. And of course, I love the mottled look of the quail eggs themselves (This wreath is actually faux eggs that were rolled in crushed quail eggs, in case you were wondering how quail managed to lay such large eggs!).

Unable to figure out where to find such a wreath (although Urban Farmhouse has now added it to their online catalog) and being too impatient to actually go out and hunt down actual quail eggs, I set out to make a similar one for myself. As usual, this one ended up a little different than my original idea, as I tend to change design ideas half way through my projects. That’s my prerogative, or so says Bobby Brown.

I put together a little tutorial in case you wanted to make one, too. I made it in one evening, so it’s a fast project that can be completed for around $12 if you have absolutely none of the supplies on hand. You could even use this as your Five Dollar Challenge project if you already had the supplies that you can’t buy at the dollar store.

SUPPLIES:
Steel Wool (I used the ‘Super Fine’ grade.)
Grapevine Wreath (Mine is 18″.)
Plastic Easter Eggs in 2 sizes (Check the dollar store for eggs in different sizes for $1 a bag.)
White Spray Primer
White Spray Paint (The cheap kind works fine – You don’t necessarily need the kind for plastics.)
Blue Acrylic Paint (I used Ceramcoat’s ‘Caribbean Blue’.)
Antique White Acrylic Paint (I used Ceramcoat ‘Antique White’.)
Brown Acrylic Paint (I used CraftSmart’s ‘Espresso’.)
Small Foam Brush (Mine was 1″.)
Old Toothbrush
Craft Wire (Mine is 22 gauge wire.)
Ivory ribbon (I used a roll of ivory wired ribbon with gold edging that I found in the wedding section of the dollar store.)

Begin by sanding each egg with the steel wool outdoors. You are just looking to take the shine off the eggs and rough them up enough so that the paint will stick. You WILL want to wear gloves and long pants to do this. If you get the little steel wool fibers on you, your skin will itch like crazy. It happened to me, so I know what I’m talking about.

You’ll notice that some of the eggs I used originally had painted designs on them. It’s perfectly fine to use that type of egg. However, there are some eggs that have a molded design on them – like a raised bunny or carrot. You do not want to use that type of egg.

Once you are finished sanding, rinse the eggs under running water and dry them.

Next, set the eggs on your spray painting tarp. The eggs I bought are hinged, so the top and bottoms pieces don’t come completely apart. I think they are easier to paint like this, but you may find you like the kind that separates better.

Spray the white primer on the eggs, making sure to cover all the way down to the base of each piece (you don’t need to paint inside the eggs). After the primer dries, spray a coat of white paint on them in the same way.

About an hour later, you can move your operation indoors. I squeezed some of the antique white and blue paint on paper plates and used my foam brush to paint half of the eggs antique white and half of them blue. I put two coats of color on each of the eggs.

Acrylic paint dries quickly, so it wasn’t long before I was able to take the eggs back outside to do a little faux mottling on them. I squeezed some of the brown paint onto another paper plate and used an old toothbrush to splatter the eggs. I know you used this technique to make some splatter paint shirts in 1987, so don’t act like you don’t know how to do it. And if you are a young’un, you simply dip the toothbrush into the paint, turn it so that the bristles face the eggs, and run your finger down the bristles. Your hands will get messy and you will probably get paint on your clothes, but your eggs will look fabulous.

I used the dark brown paint and then a dark brown/antique white mixture on both sets of eggs. I also used just the antique white on the blue eggs.

Once your eggs are dry, you will have a nice pile of painted eggs. My husband came in at this point and remarked, “Wow! Those actually look like real eggs,” so I knew they looked good. 🙂

Next, you will want to cut the craft wire in about 12 inch lengths for each egg. My eggs had several little holes pre-drilled in each end (I’m assuming it had something to do with the molds at the factory). I’m not sure if all plastic eggs have these holes, but if not, you could probably poke a whole with a large needle. You’ll want to be able to thread the wire through both ends of the egg.

You’ll now be ready to begin adding your eggs to your wreath. Position each egg where you want it on the wreath, and push the ends of the wire down through the wreath vines to the back. Twist the wires together tight on the back to secure
the egg in place.

I looped the ends of the wire around so that it lies flat on the back of the wreath.

If you can see the wire coming out of the ends of your eggs, push the wire flush against the egg. If you don’t want to use craft wire, you could always hot glue the eggs in place. I like using the wire because you can kind of adjust the eggs a little bit once your wreath is finished.

I placed all of my large eggs on the wreath first.

Then, I filled in with the smaller eggs, leaving a place for the ribbon I’ll use to hang the wreath.

The last step will be to loop the ribbon around the wreath. I left really long ribbon ends since I wasn’t sure how low I was going to hang my wreath. The ribbon doesn’t need to be secured to the wreath, as the weight of the wreath will hold it in place as it hangs.

After I figured out the length of ribbon I needed, I used a small nail and actually nailed the ribbon to the very top of my door (not the front of the door, but the top). I cut the extra length of ribbon just behind the nail so that you couldn’t see it from the inside when the door is closed.

My family really loves the new wreath. It was simple to put together and looks quite beautiful on our front door. It’s not as luxurious as the quail wreath that was my original inspiration, but this wreath is just perfect for us!

…And just so you know, my quail egg obsession has only escalated after this project. I even found some blown quail eggs at an antique shop in Florida this weekend, but then realized that the chances of me getting them back home to Texas in one piece were slim to none. I’ll be blowing my own quail eggs soon to use around my home, but that will have to be the subject of another post!

I’m adding this post to Rhoda’s “Spring Fluffing Party” over at Southern Hospitality. Hop over there and check it out!