Tag: home decor

Tutorials, Video Tutorials

How to Make a Mini Top Hat

Nothing completes a costume better than a mini top hat! It’s like the cherry on top of the sundae. And nothing could be easier than making your own custom top hat.

I think it would be super fun to have a Hat Making Party with some friends.  Serve tea and make it a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party!

Provide the hats and the decorations and have everyone bring a glue gun. You should probably make sure to get a few hats per person, because no one will want to stop at just one.

And as long as an adult is there to supervise and operate the glue gun, this would be a great party activity for kids. Everyone gets to take their own hat home as a party favor!

tophat_01In addition to being a great addition to a costume, you can also display a few of your hats as a decor feature in your house. Make seasonal themed hats to display for holidays: Fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas!

Hang them on the wall or display on your resident skull.

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This tutorial is available in video and text format. Here’s the video:hatvid

Continue reading for the text-and-photo tutorial!

Where do we get started? With supplies, of course!

SunshineShoppeSupply has a whole rainbow of hat colors, so choose one that will compliment your costume. Once you’ve chosen your hat, select a handful of coordinating bows, flowers, feathers, etc. You can go monochromatic or multicolored. All of the items in the photo below are available at SunshineShoppeSupply.com!

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I went with a red + black color scheme for the red hat, black + white for the black hat, and purple, green, and aqua for the purple hat.

Take a moment and assess your selection of decorative items. Check your stash and see what goodies you have that you could add- buttons, lace, fabric scraps. Get creative! You could use small toys, watch gears, hardware, and more.Read more…

Tutorials

How to Make Paper Feathers

I went on a little bit of a decorating frenzy for Halloween, and now I can’t stop!

I couldn’t get the idea of making some feather decorations for Thanksgiving out of my head, and I realized a gaggle of paper feathers would be the perfect #turkeytablescapes project!

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These are super easy, and they look so pretty in a group.

I put a cluster in a floral arrangement, but there really are unlimited ways to use your feathers. Use them as gift tags or place holders at the dinner table. Hot glue a bunch around a wreath. Glue them around a mason jar and add a tealight inside. Thread them on some yarn and hang from a chandlier or make a garland!Read more…

Tutorials

How to Sew a Slipcover, Part 3 – DIY Home Decor Tutorial

Homestretch, dudes and dudettes!

If you need them, here are links to Part 1 and Part 2 of this tutorial.

Step 1

Now that you have all your muslin pattern pieces traced and cut out of your Real Live Slipcover fabric, sew it together! Match up the guide lines you’ve marked and Do It To It.

Now slap that baby on the couch for a test fit.

Step 1

Here’s the back and sides of mine getting a test fit on the ol’ coucheroo.

If you’re adding piping to yours, I find it’s easiest to sew the piping to the most awkwardly shaped piece first. So for my arm piece, I sewed the piping to the front arm piece, then I sewed the piece that wraps aroooound the arm to the piped front-arm-piece. Get it?Read more…

Tutorials

How to Sew a Slipcover, Part 2 – DIY Home Decor Tutorial

Part 2, FINALLY!

I know, I move at turtle speed sometimes.

Part 1 is here if you need it.

So let’s get started. Here’s my naked couch, stripped of all it’s cushiony goodness. (It seems weird that this is the first photo of the actual couch I’ve posted. Kinda dumb, in hindsight.)

The couch.

Step 1

Last time I told you to go collect some thrift store sheets to use as a muslin, yes?

You COULD forgo the muslin and use these steps on your actual fabric, if you like to gamble, or you’re super ballsy, or really confident. I’m usually all of those, but I still made a muslin. I really didn’t want to eff this up, so I went the safe route, but if you want to roll the dice, be my guest. You’re dangerous!

Grab a sheet and tack it to part of the surface of your couch. I’m going to start with the front of one arm.

You can just stab some pins through the sheet so it lays flat. Or if you don’t want to put pins in your couch for some reason, I suppose you could use tape or something like that.

Step 1. Stab the couch!

You can ignore all the marks for now. When you have it laying nice and flat and even, trim around it, leaving a good seam allowance PLUS extra. 3 inches would be good for now.  Mine has already been trimmed… otherwise it would’ve just looked like a mess of a sheet draped over the arm of my couch.

We’ll trim it down more when we’ve got it all pinned and fitted.

Step 2

Choose another surface that abuts (hehe) the piece you’ve already pinned and trimmed. In my case, I’m going to do the piece that wraps all the way around the arm.

Pin it in place the same way I did with the front of the arm. Now, start pinning the two pieces together where they meet.  It’s usually best to start at the center (in my example, I started pinning at the top of the arm) of the soon-to-be seam. Avoid puckers, you want nice clean seams. Some designs might require some darts or gathers, you’ll have to figure out what works best for your piece of furniture.

Step 2

Pull the pieces taught, but not so tight that you stretch the fabric out of whack and wind up with wonky muslin pattern pieces.Read more…

Tutorials

How to frost a window with contact paper

If you’ve read my recent posts you know two things.

1. I love Contact paper.

2. I moved into a new house a few months ago.

The new house has a problem. That problem is that there’s  a window IN the shower. This window is a problem because it looks directly onto the street.

Oh, hello mailbox and neighbors and passersby. Don't mind me, I'm just getting Zestfully clean!

No, sir. I don’t like it.

Put a curtain over it, you say! But what about all that nice natural light?!

No, no. A curtain won’t do.

When we lived in an apartment a few years ago, there was a living room window I wanted  to cover without blocking the light, so I cut out a bunch of squares of clear Contact paper and stuck them on the window. It looked like a cool mosaic frosted window. The Contact paper is cool because when you want a change, or you’re a renter moving out, you just peel it off.

I did something similar in our basement here, since we have big egress windows that look directly at the neighbors (more on that in a minute). Even though we’re not renting, and I could have actually etched the glass or painted it with frosted glass spray, I just didn’t want anything permanent.

I knew I wanted to use the Contact paper in the bathroom, but I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to use one continuous piece of Contact paper, so there wouldn’t be any gaps you could see through. Someone would have to stick their face right up to the glass to see through the gaps, but I still didn’t like the idea.

I could have just put the plain sheet over the window and left it at that, but that would have been easy, and easy is boring.

So the OCTOPY ATTACK! window was born…

Here there be monsters!

 

This is what it looks like if you open it. No! He's getting closer! AHHHH!

 

All you need is some Clear Contact Paper, some scissors, Sharpies, and some time.Read more…