living room – emerald city diaries

Welcome to the last week of the Pinterest Christmas series for 2015! {See week one, two, & three here!}

This last week I wanted to share a quick & easy wreath display. We have two huge picture windows in our living room, one in the front of the house & the other on the side. The front window always showcases our Christmas tree (though this year & for the foreseeable short term our tree will sit off to the side of the room to keep Eloise’s play area in tact). I have always wanted to do something fun & festive on the side window that sits behind our dining room table. Enter wreaths. I think I have pinned every single hanging in a window wreath picture!

{original Pinterest link – Winter Wreath Windows}

{original Pinterest link – 12 Styles of Christmas}

{original Pinterest link – Easy Christmas Wreaths}

Supplies:

Wreaths – I had every intention of making boxwood wreaths using this tutorial, but then I stumbled onto these Smycka wreaths at Ikea & I couldn’t resist at that price point! (I couldn’t have DIY-ed wreaths for less than $9 a piece.)
Ribbon – I chose wide red satin!
Hangers – I used small finishing nails

So, this isn’t really a DIY tutorial, as much as it is showing you how I hung three pre-made wreaths in my window… wah wah.

I had Aaron help me hammer in the nails at an angle into the top of the window trim (actually it was his idea to hang them this way!) since I am WAY too short to reach the top of the window.

Then I looped the ribbon around the wreath, pulled some slack, & tied a bow at the top. And repeat for the other two wreaths, changing the amount of slack if you want them at different heights. My wreaths twist a little bit from side-to-side because they have a bit of weight to them, but I adore the way they look!

Thinking about making this project? Feel free to leave questions in the comments or link your own in the Linky Party below! Also be sure to check out Kendra’s Pinterest Christmas projects over at The Gilbertson Family.

Thanks for joining us in our annual Pinterest Christmas series! We had SO much fun & we can’t wait until next year! The Linky Party will be up the entire month of December, so be sure to check out the other linked projects & link your own up too!

Did you DIY any of your Christmas decorations this year?

Here are the instructions if you are a new to linky-party:
•click on the blue button at the bottom of this post – the one with the frog
•add a link to your Pinterest Christmas blog post in the URL field (please do not link to your home page but the specific post page)
•for “name” write a short descriptive name for your post
•if you would like to put the Pinterest Christmas button on the bottom of your post, we would love to see it there!

{our living room in 2012 – this picture is SO dark, long before I knew how PhotoShop!}

Three years ago I finally bit the bullet & hung the BEST curtains in our living room {see that post here}. It was my first real trek into window coverings, & I was so excited about having these beautiful, long, perfectly-pooled curtains {they are these ones from West Elm in 108″ length}. Fast-forward to our house remodel & despite my best efforts to keep these curtains out of the construction zone, they ended up needing cleaned before being hung back up. During that cleaning (a cold wash cycle) they shrunk a few inches. Boo. Then we had to have the curtains cleaned again after I over-boiled my pump parts & caused some smoke damage, & when we got the curtains back & hung, they were so, so short! Like high-water pants short (about 4 inches off the ground). It was awful. I was so embarrassed every time someone came over, & even though not a lot of people probably even noticed, I knew they knew. I didn’t even take a picture. Seriously. Just trust me that they were short enough that it seemed like I didn’t know what I was doing – I promise I know curtain lengths!

Any-hoo, this post is not about never washing your curtains or being mad at West Elm for having magically shrinking curtains (nope, I could never hate West Elm!), this is a post about how I made my curtains longer so they perfectly pool on the ground again!

Over months, I thought about how I could add length to the curtains (rather than replacing ALL of them – eek!) but was caught up on what fabric I would use. Fabric shopping is super tricky these days with a toddler in tow, plus I wanted to make sure the fabric was the right weight & color. Then I had an epiphany: why not just buy one curtain panel, cut it up, & sew pieces to each of the curtain panels? Genius! Plus, my mama gave me the idea to add the length to the top of the curtain, rather than to the bottom (so there wouldn’t be a weird break in the fabric as it hit the ground). So that’s what I did & the bonus was that West Elm frequently marks curtains down 20% (so take note if you are in the market for curtains).

This was my basic plan & it worked! I ripped out the top seam of the hidden tabs on the back of the curtain, & then cut off the bottoms of the tabs right at the seam. Then I cut a 7 inch piece of the extra curtain panel, hemmed the top edge to include the tops of the curtain tabs, then sewed it to the top of the old curtain panel, & finally I sewed the bottom of each tab down. This way the curtain hung in the exact same way as it did before & I didn’t have to cut & sew all of those tabs! I didn’t make an effort to try to match up the patterns on the old curtain panel & the new piece; even if I was that good of a seamstress, I probably would have needed another curtain panel.

In hindsight, I should have added an inch or two more, but I was worried at that point about adding too much length! This is a super simple project that took me just two days’ worth of naps (about 4 hours) & you can’t even tell that I added any fabric!

SONY DSC

have you ever had issues with curtain length or is it just me?

Category: living room

Pinterest Christmas: DIY Window Wreaths {Linky Party}.

DIY curtain lengthening {west elm}.