Curtains and pillows

The next two projects for the 'big girl' room include the curtains to keep out the light for naps...and for when the morning sun actually starts coming up early again (oh how I wish that was now) as well as the decorative pillows. Both were super easy and fun.



Curtains

The curtains started as an inexpensive Ikea set, I think I paid about $9.99 for the set. They were in a dark brown and were very long but ready to trim. I actually didn't choose these curtains specifically for my daughters room, they were what we had hanging in there as the spare bedroom. In an effort to save some money and not buy new I simply revamped them a little.

Tools: scissors, sewing machine, tape measure, 2 yards of fabric and the original curtains of course.

I measured down from the top of the curtain to where I wanted the new fabric band to be and marked and cut it for both curtains.

Then cut the two fabric bands in the height I wanted (about 25 inches) plus followed the width of the curtains leaving about an inch extra on either side to finish the edges. Putting right sides together I sewed the band to the bottom of the pre-made curtain where I had cut it. After both sides were done I took the bottom of the Ikea curtains and sewed them to the bottom of my band, right sides together. I wrapped the band around the back and sewed the seam then measured where to hem them. That was it curtains were hung after that.
Now I didn't serge or hide my raw edges in the back. I figured I wouldn't be washing these too often, something I may regret later not sure.



Two Decorative Pillows

These are great little additions to the bedroom and I'll likely make more and change up the look once in a while. Making an applique that your little one really adores is great, my daughter was obsessed with owls for a while, she also loves Dora but I'm not going there :)

Tools: 14 x 14 pillow form, 1/2 yard of fabric (you can use the same for front and back or switch it up), HeatBond or another double layer adhesive for the applique. Any other embellishments you may want.

First step was cutting two squares one that's 14 x 14 and one that's 14 x 16 and I serged the edges. You can also zigzag the edges. Why 14 x 16? Well I didn't want to do any zipper enclosures so a simple overlap on the back side did just fine.

Then the fun part, figuring out the applique pattern. Lots of ways to do this. Once you adhere the HeatBond to the back of a nice coordinating fabric or two you'll have a nice paper backing on your fabric. Then you can draw or trace any outline you like and cut it out.
I'm not a great artist so I usually do a Google search for an image I want and print that out as my guideline. This is where you really get to have fun. You can also sew on ribbons, piping or just plain shapes or squares if you prefer. I have some more examples for a customer I recently made more pillows for below.

Once you have all the decorations down you can sew the two sides together right sides facing. The two hemmed edges will need to overlap a little to hide the pillow inside. Then turn inside out and you're done.