Project: Kitchen Dry Storage Jars


I've wanted to do this project since March. That is a long time to desire to do a project and especially one as easy as the Painted Hive, who wrote it made it look.





A lot of factors were stopping me from my project though... like being pregnant, in the middle of moving to a new state and the all important no supplies or room to keep said project once finished.

 Yet, now after seven months I have solved all of those issues, made my beautiful jars and than had the, "Oh..." moment. Not the, "Oh this is fantastic!" but the "Oh, I could have done this much easier and cheaper and they also are much smaller than I thought" oh moment.

 ...But I still love them!! :)

Lately I've been finding that each project I do as soon as I finish someone pins on Pinterest the same exact project yet a ton cheaper and always way easier. Like, while I was nesting I decided to make floor pillows for Elliot so he could watch Sesame Street. $150 and two weeks of my time later I have two awesome floor pillows and a day later someone pinned on how to make them for $30. Than when I finished my awesome-I'm-still-madly-in-love-with-them Red Stripe Curtains some stranger pinned THE NEXT DAY how to make them for $10. Whatever... mine are better.

Oie... It's getting to be comical now. But on to the project and my experience with it so if you decide to have these love-erly amazing jars like I did you may hopefully do it faster and cheaper.

First I bought all my Ikea SLOM jars. Adorable little things and very reasonably priced. (Did just find out this morning World Market has these jars for the same exact price as well so if an IKEA isn't in your geographic area than skip the Sweedish store and head over to World Market, it's cooler over there anyway.)

Now they look like a very good size but for my purpose I didn't want just something beautiful I wanted it to be functional storage as well so that I wouldn't have beautiful glass jars and a half empty sack of flour lying around. Well... that didn't happen. The medium size jars hold about half a bag of regular size brown sugar and the large jars hold about 3/4 a sack of flour. Fail.

My love said it best:

Bryan: "So you bought these for storage yet they don't contain the whole thing... good job baby." 

Boo. Moving on...

After I bought all my jars and washed them out I bought the supplies I needed from the supply list. Now... I'm cheap. I can't help it but I figure if I can skimp a little here I'll have a little more there to make more projects! This thinking has yet to not bite me in the behind... one day I may learn. Probably not though...

YET this one time... it actually didn't matter. Because I don't wash my storage jars every other week I didn't think I needed them to be iron clad waterproof. Bryan would be miffed if I put these suckers in the dishwasher anyway so handwashing is fine with me. Plus I did find out that you'd need to scrub super hard to even make a dent in these to get them off... how I know that may have been because I accidentally labeled the wrong jar but there is no photographic proof I did that so... it didn't happen.

I purchased these waterslide decals from Ebay and skipped out on getting the fancy Magic Decal paper since it was like $30 a pop for five sheets. I mean it can't be that magical... Plus I would have needed a laminator and that would have been another $30 and at the end of the day if I'd a spent $70 bucks on labels for jars that didn't store very much... I would have been a very unhappy thrifty momma.

In order to save that $70 I had to do some tweaking to the Painted Hive's free printables. I'm semi-good at graphic design, I love to design my own invitations and logos and such so I thought this would be a snap. It sort of was... between the three episodes of Seasme Street and Word World I had to watch with Elliot (cause he likes to sit on my lap) plus two sickly kiddos it just took a little longer than expected.

I had to horizontally flip the image to print it as a mirror image to use with the waterslide decals. The magic decal instructions allowed you to print them normally. Now flipping an image horizontally can be very simple. I use a program called Pixelmator that was like $12 that I design everything with. It has a simple button and BAM you are done.

It took me forever to find that button and even longer to turn the PDF into an image that I could actually flip. PDF's are awesome. So hard to work with if you actually DO NOT want them to be a PDF.

The short version? Right click on the PDF file and choose "open with..." I had the option to choose Pixelmator and opened the entire project there, flipped it, saved it and printed it. That five minutes took me three hours... I imagine you wonder at this point why I even bother with doing crafts but it's still all fun and one day I'll look back on these and laugh as hard as you are right now.

So! Now I have my decals, my jars, my Clear Acrylic Spray paint (from Michaels cause Home Depot didn't have that stuff) and I'm ready! I even ordered the cute wooden scoops! Yet... About those scoops. Yea... you should check the size of those suckers before you buy them, a photo below will explain why. It would take me a good twenty minutes to get a cup of flour using those things...


I followed the instructions that came with my decal papers. I took my two sheets outside, sprayed them with a nice coat of Clear Acrylic and let it dry for 40 minutes as instructed.

After sufficient drying (I actually waited) I cut out my piece carefully, had my bowl of warm water, dropped it in there and watched all the ink come off..............

That obviously was not supposed to happen. Looked back at my instructions and tried to find what I had missed... I had printed them at the best resolution, sprayed them, waited for 40 minutes.... than decided to check out Youtube.com as suggested at the very end of the instructions for more clarity.

A HA!!

When spraying these suckers you need to do it multiple times. Spray one coat and wait 30 seconds. Than spray a second coat. Wait 30 seconds than spray a third and wait 40 minutes. I just took the same decals (minus my regular white sugar decal that was still sitting in a washed out puddle) and sprayed them accordingly. And that did it. Awesome.


Supplies at the ready!


It works!!! 

I had my beautiful jars! And once you have all the supplies it's a snap to put them together. No, really. :) I love them and definitely much more than the storage jars that came with the husband. (Though they were great and very useful my love. They have a warm fuzzy spot in my heart because you smartly did them when I didn't even know you had to put stuff like that in storage to keep buys away... Thank you. I'm sure I will re-purpose them into something fantastic like a hat or waterslide... you never know with pinterest)

Old Hubby Jars


Now I did actually go to World Market to get that tiny little jar for my baking powder and found the two giant jars at The Container Store for $9.99 a pop. I mean I had put forth all that effort that I had to make them work as functional storage. I couldn't give up when I'd came so far.

By the way, did I mention I found a pack of labels at World Market's website this morning for $3.99?
Comical right? Mine are way better...


Never give up! Never Surrender!

God Bless,


Jessica


DIY Sewing Striped Curtains


I have a small problem... ok... it's a big problem. I. Love. Stripes.
Until now my stripe obsession has stayed safely within my wardrobe.
And seriously... It is quite a striped wardrobe. If it had stripes or pockets it was in my basket much to my bestie Megan's horror.

Yet, with a new house comes endless possibilities.
My stripe love didn't have to stay within my clothes... my windows needed some stripe love too!

Now on Pinterest you will see tons of do it yourself stripe curtains that are all about painting. You basically take a pair of Merete Curtains from Ikea ($24.99) some paint, painters tape and a few hours and they have beautiful striped curtains.

Logically if someone else can do it... of course I could give it a shot right?

I first decided I wanted to have red striped curtains after seeing this stunning photo from the Better Homes and Gardens website:


Since my living room accent color was red and eventually the walls will be painted Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter I thought it would look fantastic! 

I dragged sweet love of my life Bryan to Ikea (joys of living in Texas now) and bought about five packs of those Merete Curtains since I planned on making quite a few curtains... eventually. Yet, as I began to explain my plan to Bryan about how to achieve these amazing (and of course EASY) curtains he sweetly pointed out a few holes in my plan... as only an engineer could.

1. I don't know about you but I have never painted a perfect stripe that didn't bleed... it is not my skill.
Amplify that bad skill by ten on curtains that you can't get paint out of if you mess up... Let's just not think about it.

2. Everything I do my 22 month old son Elliot NEEDS to help me with. He has this urge in him that if it looks like I need help he has to get right in it and help and combining that with paint... yea. Plus there was no way I could complete these bad boys while he napped. Unless I did it for a week and who wants open paint around your house for a week??

3. He just bought me a brand new Brother sewing machine... couldn't I just sew them?

DING!

Why couldn't I sew them? I love to sew! I do a semi-decent straight line... Let's do that!

First I pulled out my curtains. I used two packs which equaled four panels since I had a big window space to cover. (Three windows in all) I threw them in the wash so they would shrink than ironed them when they popped out of the dryer. Laid them over a banister to keep away wrinkles and figured out how wide I wanted my stripes.

I wanted four large red stripes so we figured a 16" stripe would be wide enough since Merete Curtains are 98" long. After they were washed they were about 96" which divided by 16 was now an even 6. Awesome. Now each panel after washing shrinks to 54" wide.

At this moment I would love for you to learn from my mistakes and trust me... I made them. And the first way to do it is when you are buying your fabric.

First let me tell you the breakdown:

To make 16" stripes on Merete Ikea Curtains you need to cut your fabric to this measurement for each stripe:
                                                      17"L x 57"W
That is putting a ½"on each side of your stripe to iron the hem plus almost an inch on each end of your width to fold it over the edge of the curtain and sew. Got that? This always trips me up... 

I found a red fabric that matched my accent sofa pillows. Now being married to an engineer becomes super helpful in this situation because the minute numbers come into sewing I panic like an indecisive chick at Starbucks. The red fabric I choose was only 36" wide so I had to go 57" deep and got two panels for each 57". Now, if you are smart you will have the nice people at Jo-Ann's cut your fabric to 57" so than all you have to do is cut the 17" panels. (To do two panels you need 3 - 57" cuts and it will make 6 stripes) Because cutting fabric is never super easy. It's doable but not always perfect, that's why you give yourself the extra around the edges.

I had them cut me all the fabric they had. Again cause I wasn't number savvy I had them cut it at 7 yards than 3 yards because they had to use two separate bolts. Stupid. I lost a 57" stretch in there between the 7 and 3 yards so I had to go buy more fabric. Fail. I was trying to use my Jo-Ann's coupon which didn't work anyway so from now if the fabric is already on sale I am just going to have them cut it to the measurements I need and save myself an hour of cutting.

| PRICECHECK: |
I bought about $80 worth of red fabric plus two Merete Curtains that came to $50.
To make my four panels it cost a whopping $130. Ouch.
Yet, considering I couldn't find these suckers anywhere and the cheapest ones on Etsy are $175 PER panel or $260 per set... I AM AWESOME and saved $570 and $390 respectively!! It is so important to put that price check in perspective throughout any project you undertake. It helps you sail through any speed bumps you may encounter. And knowing me... I am going to hit some. 

Once you have all your fabric cut you need to iron the hem on the stripes. I use this awesome idea from Martha Stewart (Oh Martha) that helps me make sure I am making a ½ hem. Ironing in relation to sewing is the ONLY time I enjoy ironing. It's instant gratification. Wrinkles be gone!

I laid out my ironed hem on my curtains and measured 16" down under the grommets. My husband and I thought we shouldn't count those four inches that contain the grommets. You should. It doesn't look bad but technically my first white stripe is now 20" and not 16". In the end it did add an extra 4" to my curtains which made them taller so that was an unexpected bonus. But the next time I do this... I'm going to include the 4" grommets in my measurements.

At first I tried to cheat on this project and just pin the ends of the fabric (Horizontally) and not all the way around. Who really has all that time to pin? This is what happened after I ran it through my sewing machine than laid it down to admire my handiwork...


You can laugh. I did. 
So I ripped that out and pinned the WHOLE thing. What I did was pin the top and the bottom of the stripe but NOT the sides. They shift a bit anyway when you sew so there is no point. 

You have to lay down your stripe and go across the curtain with your ruler to make sure it's the right measurement all the way across. Don't be lazy on this! If you feel like being lazy look again at the picture above and let that inspire you.

Sewing Tip: 
I have a regular Brother sewing machine and stuffing all that fabric in that tiny four inch whole... yea that ain't gonna cut it. After my massive fail above I figured out I should fold the curtain at four inches so the excess can fit in my little brother space. This will help you slide it through without shoving all the fabric in the little hole. Looks kind of like this: 



I measured between each red stripe 16" and pinned. After some sewing and more ironing I had my first completed panel!!


P.S. These won't fit on your ironing board... joy.

Now with one completed panel I took that upstairs, laid it down and used it as a reference to match up all my remaining panels. They needed to match semi-perfectly or they won't measure up when you hang them and having zig zag curtains when you weren't going for that effect will just depress you every time you pass them.



Look I even caught a cute baby in the picture!

This is a great picture. It shows you my extra four inches that were added by the last stripe. But it also shows you how you need to match them up. I laid them together and took out my ruler and started measuring. The first stripe was a perfect 16" under the grommets.
The second stripe... was 15 ⅝". Not really sure how that happened... but it didn't matter cause now they all were gonna be like that. You can't tell they aren't perfectly 16" can you? We couldn't either.
The third stripe by the way was even worse... it was 15 ½ down. Bahahaha.

Now this project... it did take me awhile. Like probably over two weeks but that was because I stop when my husband or kids want to play. If I would have pushed on with no distractions it would have taken probably a full day to do all four panels. But what fun is that?

After they were finished I had my sweet hubby hang them up. This was him trying to figure out how high he needed to hang the curtain rod.



I sent a demo photo to my sister who immediately panicked and thought I was putting Dr. Seuss curtains in my living room. 


I showed her my inspiration photo and she felt a bit better... but it wasn't until I showed her the completed project that she believed I wasn't crazy. She and I have polar opposite tastes by the way so any kind thing she says about my decorating is a HUGE WIN. ;) 



So, there you have it. It isn't anywhere near being a completed room but the curtains give me a great start. Plus I fall in love with them every time I pass them which is always the mark of a great project. Do they have a few messed up edges and not so straight lines? Of course... but that's the character of it.

And for $130 bucks... it's still a fantastic deal my husband can be proud of.

Hope this helps! If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!

God Bless,


Jessica


From Louisiana to Texas

Have you ever had that season in life that was so crazy hectic when you look back it just seems like a blur? Like... when you have your second child, decide to build a house in a different state, try and sell your house, buy a new car, your hub's gets a new job and move out all at the same time... Oh... and during a Hurricane just to make it more exciting. ;)

Yea, I've never had that happen to me either...

Now that the hectic craziness is over... right... perhaps I can try this blogging thing again. I've certainly been busy enough to have a few posts you may want to read. May, being the key word.

It's been a month since we've moved from my home state of Louisiana to the great state of Texas and God as always... has been so gracious and kind.

It is still an adjustment for me to uproot from a church I had attended for over 20 years plus beloved friends I have left behind. :( Yet, as with everything during the last five years (Yay! Five Year anniversary next month!) God had proven over and over that He is faithful to take care of us.

If God is faithful to open this door for Bryan's new job, have us to build this beautiful new home and sell our house so easily... how could He not take care of us here?

Now does that mean I still don't have hard days where I mourn the loss of our New Orlean's life? Definitely not. But at the end of those days I am reminded that God is faithful in His promises
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28
...and He also has given me a scatter brained mind that will easily latch onto something else to keep my interest.

Like... making things for our new home. :)

Yes, God does get a kick out of me. Hope you do too.

So I should be having a bunch of new tutorials up and running.
I don't have the cheapest or the easiest tutorials... yet I probably have some of the funniest so I hope you join me on this adventure and may these stories encourage you to be adventurous too!

God Bless

Jessica


I know what you are thinking... I'm surrounded by some good looking men!