Paper Garland

February 14, 2011 9:26 am

First of all, thank you so much for your kind words following my last post. I couldn’t reply to all of them, but you have no idea how much they meant to me.  I’m going to print them out for my sister to read, too. I thought I’d share a picture of my sister, her husband and two children that was taken this weekend at the baptism of their baby. You can see on their faces that even through the suffering, there is still joy.

Zach’s 30th birthday was a couple weeks ago so I wanted to share some ideas I used for his party. I’m not a big decorator and I also didn’t want to spend a lot of money.  I wanted to try to do something nice since it was his 30th. So as I was thinking about it I came across some paper garland. I thought, “Perfect. I have paper!” So this garland was the first step for decorating. I got some old books I had and marked circles.

I cut them out with pinking sheers.

Then I cut out fabric circles from scraps, slightly smaller then my paper circles.

Then I placed the fabric circles on top of the paper and just sewed away.

I ended up with A LOT of garland.

I love the simplicity of the vintage paper and the fabric. I also love that it didn’t cost me anything. More to come on the rest of my decorating later this week!

As we were walking on the beach yesterday. I captured this random moment. I’m grateful.

Completely grateful.


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Anthropologie Cirrus Duvet Tutorial

November 22, 2010 1:27 pm

After my beloved duvet died, I looked and looked for a replacement. I settled on this Cirrus set from Anthropologie. I love white bedding. I can’t explain it. But no prints for me, just white.

Then I decided to just take a few hours and make it myself. It’s very easy, just time consuming. Here’s how.

First, determine your duvet size.

Twin
68 x 88 inches
Full Queen
88 x 88 inches
King
104 x 88 inches

Next buy 3 coordinating flat sheets. For example, if you’re making a king, buy three king in whatever color. These were $15 each from Target.

Next takes a little math. Figure out how many gathered strips you want. I decided on 9. You could do just three large ones, smaller ones- whatever you prefer.  Then after that decide how many straight strips you need. I needed 8 strips for my 9 gathered rows. Then figure out the width to cut each row. After that, cut your strips out of the sheet. You’re gonna end up with a whole lotta this:

Since my duvet needs to be 88 inches wide, I knew I needed double that to make the gathers. So I cut two strips that were 10 inches by 88 inches, then sewed the two together to get one long strip making it 10 x 176.

The first step is to gather, or ruffle your first long piece of fabric. Do it on one side first. Then pin that ruffeld side to one of your straight strips of fabric.

Serge it together. The ungathered top will be sewn to the back of the duvet so don’t do anything about it now. Just get another long strip, gather one end and attach it to the other side of the straight strip.

Then gather the other end and attach antoher straight strip. And that’s your pattern to the bottom!  When the front is all completed, gather the top of the duvet then attach it to one of the sheets. Serge all the way around the sides and top. Leave the bottom open and hem it. You can add buttons or whatever kind of closure you like. Then here’s how it looks on.

I love the effortless look of it. It almsot looks like a messy white sheet laying  on the bed.

I love different shades of white so I’m going to keep the cream accent pillows and make some brighter white euro shams. I didn’t want to do the same technique because it’s a little too matchy for me.

Total time was about 5 hours. I was about to pull my hair out by the end of it because it’s so repetitive, but it was totally worth $45!! Hope you find this useful!

Coming soon- a tutorial for a Christmas Kid’s Skirt out of this FABULOUS material from harts.


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