Friday, July 9, 2010

Homemade

One thing I have loved about being a stay at home mom is that I get to put all my craft ideas to use. In Mexico when they build houses they dont seem to give any thought to the windows and the fact that you may want curtains. This has been a hurdle for every place we have moved into. This new house is no different. I used the curtains I had already made for the large back door and window but nothing even resembling these would work on the front windows. The windows go all the way to the ceiling and in the upstairs bedrooms they go all the way to one wall leaving no room for hanging rods. they also open inward which posed more problems. What we came up with in the end was a thin metal pipe secured toward the ceiling with a hook or nail (or tape in some instances) and I hand made the curtains to be long enough and easy enough to open and close by adding loops to the top. The picture of the curtain in my room is not updated (the black and white one) I have now put shower curtain rings into the top to make it easier to open and close. It actually doesn't look as tacky as it sounds. ;)
In the last photo is a picture of my youngest daughters name. We had one for Alana that was given to us which is very nice. I felt Joslin needed one to. This is made from sheets of thick plastic which came off of a metallic shelf we had gotten for free. I took the sheets off and saved them in case I could use them later. They did come in handy after all. My favorite projects are ones like this one where Im able to find things from around my house, for cheap or free and make them something fun.







6 comments:

  1. Did you sew before you lived in Mexico or did you pick it up there? Love the patterns you picked!

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  2. Very clever solution to the windows/walls juxtaposition! While building our house I had to constantly reiterate these types of details to the workers. They just don't think of about them.

    Love the curtains, glad you are making the new place homey. :-)

    btw - how did you fare with the screens?

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  3. Rebecca- Iv always loved to be "crafty" and make things or paint ext. But I never really had the time to do anything big or fun till I came here.
    Leah we ended up using my hot glue gun. It worked wonders, but our screens are plastic not metal so you kind of have to let the glue cool a bit then press the screen on. We ran out of glue sticks and believe it or not they were from a bag I had brought from the states, so for now we are at a stand still but we got the main windows done and there are so many windows we really dont need to do them all.
    One thing I want to find before winter comes on again is the shrink wrap type plastic for windows. I use to use it in the states because my apartment windows were breezy.

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  4. I always admire someone who is crafty as I am FAR from!!! Great work amiga ;)

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  5. beautiful job on your curtains! we had the same challenge in our house. the windows are all such random shapes and sizes!
    Also - i saw your comment on my blog... you can buy a french press at starbucks in mexico! it's so worth it!

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  6. Amanda - Your resourcefulness never ceases to amaze me!!

    Our curtains in Mexico are pretty sad looking - either old and worn out or over the top/tacky looking, i.e. a poinsettia curtain (which as an American I will always associated with Christmas) in our main doorway.

    Your curtains look very pretty.

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