Seeing Chevron

Way back in April, when I first posted about our dining room, I had mentioned wanting to add a touch of chevron in the form of either curtain panels or a large dining room suitable rug.  For now, I decided to go the chevron curtain route since we already owned a set of plain white Ritva panels from IKEA that would make the perfect blank canvas for a little chevron painting fun.

Here are our supplies:

I color matched a beautiful rich, deep chocolate brown paint color (I have since misplaced the paint chip so I'm not sure of the exact color...sorry!) to a flat 'One by Olympic' gallon of paint that we picked up on sale at Lowe's.  We also used textile medium in our paint (1:2 ratio of medium to paint) to make the paint more flexible when dry.  The curtain would be washable if I heat set the paint/textile medium combo with an iron, although I'm not sure I'd trust it in my washing machine:).  

In the future, I'd love to do a mini test to see how much impact the textile medium has on fabric flexibility and prevention of cracking, although the medium was not that expensive.  I used about 1 1/2 bottles of textile medium, and I stuck closely to the 1:2 ratio (medium to paint) recommended by the manufacturer.  Full price the bottles are $7.99 each at Joann's (located by the acrylic paints), but I used coupons on both bottles making the total for 2 bottles around $9.

When I first added the textile medium to the paint, I was worried that it would affect the color of my paint because the medium is a thick, white product, but my dark, brown paint color was not changed with the addition of textile medium.  I mixed the paint and medium together in a blue plastic cup:

We save our Red Solo cups for other things:).

And then I poured the paint into a paint tray within a cardboard box (to be safe since I was painting on the floor in our great room):

As for decisions on the size of the chevron stripes we wanted to make, I looked to this tutorial from the blog A Drop in the Bucket:

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Shalynn used this spacing to create her bold chevron stripes (painted on a huge $20 drop cloth...brilliant!)

For our purposes, I decided that the 6 inch stripes would be a bit too thick for our space, so we decided on 4 inch stripes but kept the 12 inch spacing between peaks in place.  (In retrospect, I wish I would have drawn out our proposed spacing on a big piece of poster board so I could get the feeling of the stripe size.  I think I would have landed on an even smaller stripe size...like 3 inches or maybe even 2 inches.  Next time:).)

My amazing husband marked and taped out the curtain panels for me:

We just used the tape we had on hand, although it was much easier to paint when 2 pieces of 2" tape were placed side by side to create the four inch 'white' sections of the chevron pattern because there were no gaps, thus no opportunites for a roller to sneak over a tape line into the wrong section.

After taping, Bill needed a break so he laid down for a minute in Charm's room.  The kids created a colorful Daddy mountain while he rested his back and knees:

That's Bill under the pile of rugs, blankets, pillows and stuffed animals.

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His left hand is under this carefully placed pile of feathers.

The Daddy emerges...and a 30 minute feather pickup ensues.

And now back to the curtains.  Here is the second panel that was taped using 2 inch painter's tape:  

Painting it was super easy, since I didn't have to think about what parts needed to stay white versus being painted.  Any exposed part of the curtain got painted.

Here is the same curtain panel after I applied a second coat of paint:

I painted 3 or 4 stripes at a time and then removed the tape around those stripes to give me the best chance of having clean lines.  It worked well!!  Here are some more pictures:

And for a little fun, here's our dining room last year:

Add a basket wall, a chalkboard menu, wall art, a homemade curtain rod, a new dining bench (and table), new to us dining room chairs, a settee and now chevron curtains.  Then takeaway 2 booster seats, and here is our dining room now:

It's amazing what a difference a year makes!  Is anyone else chevron happy?  

Don't forget to enter my Christmas Starbucks Giftcard Giveaway if you haven't done so already...your odds are really good for this one:)!

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Winter Wonderland Sideboard

I posted yesterday about our dining room table tablescape, which included some images of our buffet table as well.  In decorating the buffet, I was inspired by this image that I came across on Pinterest:

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So I crafted up my own version using sticks from my Forest Friend, icicle ornaments and pine cones I had on hand already, a glass vase that I picked up on clearance at Marshall's a while back for $5, and a $1.99 battery operated string of 10 lights:

My version could definitely use some more lights, but there are complexities in making this creation a reality that involve needing 2 size D batteries for 10 lights.  And then you have to find a way to cover up those batteries and the battery holder with pine cones in a way that you can still access the on/off switch.  One set of lights was tricky to work with.  Two sets would have been horrible.  I could have cut a hole in the bottom of the vase and used a corded set of lights, but cutting glass could be tricky too.  For now, I'm okay with only having a few exposed lights, I guess:).

I never intended to keep my gold frames up for this month, so I brain stormed a bit about what I could replace them with.  I decided I wanted to spell out a word using some of my West Elm mugs.  At first, I really wanted to spell out 'Santa' to go with my chalkboard, "He knows if you've been bad or good", but that would have required an extra 'A' mug.  I even looked to see if they were on sale again at West Elm, thinking it would be a cheat in our 'No Spend December' that would be worth it, but then I realized that I also don't have a 'T' mug.  There are only 5 letters that I don't currently own:  P, Q, T, V and F.  'Santa' was out of the running.  Then I thought about using the word 'Elf', but there's no F on my mug shelf.  Then 'Burt', the name of our 'Elf on a Shelf', but again there was no 'T'.  Then I decided to use the word, 'Snow'.  When I went looking for the 'O', I remembered that although I ordered an 'O' mug last month, it's currently on backorder.  The drama, I'm telling you.  Here's what I did for a day:

'SNUW'

Then I remembered I had this Owl candle that I picked up for $1 at Home Goods last month.

I put him on a log perch and covered him with a dome (picked up for $1 at St. Vincent's in Northern Wisconsin in October).

SNOW(L)!

We're big into asking the question, 'What letter does _____ start with?' in our house, so this totally works for us!

I switched up the writing on our chalk board to match 'Snow'.

I put a few candlesticks up, and Wa-La!  

Below the buffet is a faux sheepskin rug from IKEA with some stick balls on it.  We make snowmen with the stick balls.  It's fun.

The End. 

Thanksgiving Preparations: Decor

We are hosting a big Thanksgiving meal this year, and we could not be more excited!  We have hosted Thanksgiving for the last 3 years, and we so enjoy celebrating family and togetherness in our home.  We are lucky enough to have both sides of our family present for the big meal, so Lucky and Charm get to have all of their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins over at the same time  (Except for Texan Uncle D.B. Sad Face Here.)  It is AWESOME!  

After two years of preparing a traditional Thanksgiving meal with turkey and all the fixings in our home, we decided to try out a catered 'home cooked' meal last year, and we're not going back to all the planning, stress and mess of preparing the meal ourselves.  At least we're not going back anytime soon.  So in terms of meal preparation, there isn't much.  We always make extra potatoes from Opa's crop, and we also have Oma's famous Pumpkin Torte every year as well.  Bill's family brings the appetizers.  I spoon the hot out of the oven food into ceramic dishes.  It is so easy.  (And not that expensive all things considered.)

Instead of major cooking, I get to focus my attention on other things...like stocking our pantry and fridge for the weekend company and...decorating, of course.

Here are a few things I've done for our Thanksgiving celebration this year:

Front Door Wreath

We still have lots of pumpkins and gourds by our front door from Halloween, and we have the tiny, but cute dried corn stalks that we grew in our garden this year, as well, but I wanted a wreath.  I didn't want to spend much on a wreath though, so I worked with a wreath I owned already:

I picked up this wreath last year on super clearance from Michael's.  It was 90% off and then I had a 20% off entire purchase coupon, so I think I paid $3 for it.  I liked the wreath, but it looked horrible on my front door...something about the yellow with our house color or something.  Instead of picking up a new grapevine wreath, I just stripped this one of the yellow flowers and added some 80% off fall clearance flowers from Michael's:

It's hard to see, but there are 4 stems here and the total was about $3.

I've never made an arrangement like this before, so be nice to me:).  I cut the pieces I wanted to work with using a wire nipper (or clipper?  I don't know the terminology, but it reminds me of the time I was working in the pharmacy and an older gentleman asked me where the 'super duper nail nippers' were.  I'll never forget that.  I had no idea what he was talking about.)

Back to the wreath.  I laid out the floral pieces in a pattern I liked and then got to work with a glue gun.  Here's a progress shot:

Done:

 Hung:

It's very neutral, but I like it.  And for $3, it doesn't have to be perfect, right?

Dining Room Decor

Moving on to the dining room table.  We're having 12 adults and 5 kiddos, so we'll be sitting at our dining room table, the breakfast bar and we'll have a kiddo table for the toddlers, which means we'll be having the food presented buffet style and which also means that I'll be able to have a table centerpiece this year.  I like table centerpieces, especially practical ones that allow you to actually see people you're sitting across the table from:), so with that in mind, here is what I came up with:

The twiggy pumpkins were from the dollar section at Target, but were actually $2.50 each full price.  I purchased them at 50% off for $1.25 each.  I purchased the green leaf place ments at Walmart last year, although I did pick up a few more this year for $1 each on clearance this past weekend.  The corks we had on hand already, as well as the green and blue candles.  The only things I needed were two candle holders.  

Inspired by the displays at West Elm, I went to the back yard and took a saw to a log to come up with this:

It's not totally level, so I used some felt furniture protectors under the 'candle holder' to even things out a bit.

Here is how my candle holders started out:

My only word of caution when doing this is to check out your log thoroughly.  The logs I used had been sitting by our fire pit for awhile, and the first one had tons of gross, icky white stuff hanging out under the bark.  Yuckers.  The second one was pretty wood, waiting to be turned into candle holders.

 Here is the another view with bad lighting...daylight savings changes are throwing me for a loop:

Next up, were changes to my bushel baskets from this image:

I decided I wanted to add Granny Smith apples to the baskets to add a punch of green to my green and blue Thanksgiving Room, and this is what I realized:

$10 worth of Granny Smith apples barely fills one basket, even with substantial newspaper filling.  I thought for sure I had purchased enough to fill both baskets, but nope.  We love apples around here and all, but I'm not spending $20 on perishable fruit for a holiday display.  Not this year anyway:).  We'll eat those apples up, but I had to come up with a Plan B.  Ironically, I ended up spending more than the additional $10 I would have had I gone the apple route, but I'll be able to use my alternative for Halloween and Thanksgiving for years to come.  

I found several of these pumpkins on 75% off clearance at Target two weeks ago:

The big one was $3.74 and the smaller ones were $2.48 each.  I spent $11.25 on 4 pumpkins and $4 on 4 Walmart green leaf place ments (which I needed after discovering that the pumpkins were the exact color of the buffet:)).  Total: $15.25

And in case you're curious, here's what we had for dinner this week:).  I just love my menu chalkboard!

Mantle

So, I've got a wreath on the front door and the dining room decorated...next up, our mantle.  Well, sort of our mantle.  It's a work in progress still, but here's a wreath I picked up at...you guessed it, Target.  75% off.  $9.98.  It's made of anise and smells like licorice.  I just love the texture, the color and the smell.  (In case you're wondering why it's not on our front door, the reasons are three-fold.  1. Hanging it with the attached ribbon would have been trickier than you'd think.  2.  It's a somewhat fragile wreath.  3.  I love it too much to leave it outside.)

We just duct taped it to the paint chip art piece I made.  (Oh, and staple gun happy Bill added one staple in the ribbon too.)  I wish the chip art was in a bigger frame, but we're working with what we have!  I think the candles are going to go, but this is what our mantle looks like now.  Actually, that's not true.  I changed it already, but let's focus on the wreath.  Can you believe it was less than $10 buckaroos?

Kitchen Counter Decor

Our kitchen counter will largely be full of food and drinks on Thanksgiving, but I did sneak in one corner arrangement using my favorite apothecary-esque glass jars that I've had for a couple years:

The front jar has a container of ginger snaps in it from IKEA.  Yummers.

This jar has slips of green paper in it.  Every night after dinner we're having the kids (and us) write one thing that we are thankful for.  After Thanksgiving, we'll open the slips of paper as a family and read them to each other.  I can't wait to read them!

This last jar is completely random.  It started out with only stickballs in it, but they looked too brown with the brown ginger snaps.  Since my house is all about blue and green these days and the paper slips are green, I decided I wanted to add some blue to the jar, so I tossed in some eggs we made in April.  I told the kids they are turkey eggs, so that's why they are out for Thanksgiving.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

We've been busy around here, and tomorrow, I'll have a short post with an update to our bar area.  One week until Turkey Day!  Woo-Hoo!

Turkey Day Decor Costs:

$3 Wreath

$3.75 Table Centerpiece

$15.25 Buffet Pumpkins and Place Mats

$10 Mantle Wreath

Total: $32

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