#140...bath window dressing

I really love the window drape in this photo that I ripped from Metropolitan Home a few months back. It's light, feminine and contemporary all at the same time. I needed a new window covering for my bathroom that I have been remodeling over the last few weeks. I wanted to try to recreate the feel of this inspiration drape.

 

It was a fairly simple drape to make. Here's how I did it......

• Measure window width & height (mine was 29"wide x 36" high)
• Double the width figure and add a few inches extra to the height
• Decide how high you want your top fabric panel to be in relation to the height of your window
• Cut out the top fabric panel at the double width and determined height measurement adding extra 1/2" for seam allowance
• Cut the gauze fabric, leaving it longer than needed (hem at the end)
• Sew the top panel and gauze together
• Fold over top edge and sew down, making finished edge
• Fold the drape like an accordion creating soft folds
• Using drapery pins, pin into the back of each fold

I used a tension rod to hold up my drape, and I clipped the drape to the tension rod while still on my table, as not to mess up the folds.

...however, when I flipped it over and put it up, I felt like the folds were not going to hold in place as straight and orderly as I wanted, so I ended up hand tacking through each fold on the front of the drape to hold it in place.

I liked how it looked, but I sort of missed being able to see outside or let sun into the bathroom, so I rigged up a way to pull the curtain up.

I mounted a glass drawer pull onto the top of the lower sash of my window and pulled the gauze fabric through.

...and this is what it looks gathered through the pull.

#139...signs of spring

Amidst all of the rainy, cold weather we've been having in south Texas, my Dwarf Camellia tree has begun blooming in time for Valentine's Day.

#138...lily's room

Awhile back, I posted my first e-decorating design board that I put together for my friend Teri, who lives several states away. The design was for her daughter Lily's bedroom, and today Teri sent me the pictures of the finished product, and I am so overjoyed and impressed by how she translated the board and decorated Lily's room! You can read more about all of the individual DIY projects she completed for the room here on her blog.

lily's room before

lily's room before

lily's room e-decorating plan

......and here is lily's new room e-designed by me, and decorated by her Mom!

and finally, this is Teri, the decorator behind the room.... a cool mom....an avid photographer.... an old friend....and the person whom I credit for inspiring me to start this blog.

#137...fashion sketching

A few years ago I took a fashion sketching course through a local college that was one of the best yet most challenging courses I've ever taken. The fashion figure is called a croquis, and is used by fashion designers to show garment designs on a human form prior to production. There is an art to drawing a croquis that extends far beyond sketching a cute skirt on a stick figure. Proportion, anatomy and movement of the croquis are all key to a successful fashion sketch. Here is a sampling of what I learned about fashion sketching.

Using a ruler and inch measurements we learned the fashion figure is 10 heads high, and in these sketches 1 head= 1 inch

The shoulders fall at 1.5 inches, the bust at 2 inches, hip at 4 inches and so forth until you get down to the ankle at 9.25 inches.

After practicing our 10 inch stick-like figures for weeks, learning to draw it without the use of a ruler, we moved on to adding curves to our form, with a lesson in musculature and bone structure.

 Above is my croquis with her curves, before we began learning how to move her.

To begin drawing figures in movement, we resorted back to ruler work and this time used various angle calculations and a lot of geometry to move her off of center axis. (I was never very good at any type of spatial math, so I thought this was really hard)

To practice finding different poses to draw, we cut up our croquis and turned them into paper dolls that we could move their limbs around. Above is my assignment for this process, where I created a velcro board to show the croquis in motion.

Fast forward two semesters, and we finally got to add color and clothing to our croquis. Below are a few of my final project designs in which I designed a resort collection. I used water color pencils and ink on the croquis, and spray paint, splatter paint and collage to create my background papers.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my fashion sketches, as they have been hiding in a portfolio case for awhile now, and when I came across them in my January cleaning efforts, they made me smile remembering the hard work and care that went into this class.

#136...labeling

This weekend I was looking back through my posts, to show a client a dresser I had refurbished, and I realized that my post labels were really disorganized. For instance, I had used  "paint", "painting", "paints" and "spray paint" all as labels, which is a tad overkill for my painting projects, and made it very hard to find the post I wanted to share. So, I took the time to consolidate and organize my labels, which involves editing each post. It was a chore, but I am happier with the overall organization of my posts and labels.

This is a picture from Martha Stewart, of a way to organize and label physical items in nice looking bins. I actually have items in my studio organized in similar bin and clothespin label style, mine are just a little more industrial looking.

My bins are from Lowe's, and these magnetic metal clothespins, that hold vellum metal rimmed tags from the Art supply store that I ink stamped words onto.

#135...gallery hanging how to

domino magazine

Gallery style wall groupings are a great way for a lot of smaller photos and artwork to hang together and make a big impact. Symmetrical groupings of same size frames are easy to hang, you just have to do some math and serious measuring; however, asymmetrical groupings that include various frame sizes can be a little bit more tricky to fit together to create a unified statement wall.

Livingetc

Cottage Living

I have hung a few gallery walls, and it took me several tries to figure out some tricks to avoid having a million unwanted holes in the wall that you then have to fill and paint over. The below hanging tips may seem like common sense tips, but are so valuable I thought I'd write them out as a reference for you and for me!

my guest room

1. Gather together the frames that you want to hang
2. Measure the wall that you want to hang on, width and height
3. On the floor, mark out this dimension with painters tape or some books or something that will give you a visual of the space you are working within
4. Starting from somewhere near the center of the space, lay down the frames you have, trying to stagger the edges while keeping the frames only a few inches apart and working outward 
5. If you are using a bunch of open frames (not filled yet) even better, because you are not limited by whether the frame hangs horizontally or vertically (worry about what photo to put in the frame later)
6. Play around with arrangement, trying frames in various directions and in different spots until you are happy with the arrangement
7. You may find during this process, that you need to gather some additional odd sized frames or square frames to help fill in holes created in your frame puzzle
8. Once you are satisfied with how the gallery looks on the floor draw a mini diagram like mine below
9. Now that you have a blueprint, you don't have to worry about getting confused once you start picking them up off the floor and hanging them on the wall
10. Once you've hung all of your frames, if you are lacking artwork or photos, it will be easier to fill in as your already hung frames will dictate the orientation and size of piece you need for each frame.

This diagram turned into this gallery wall in the entry hall of my parent's house

#134...watercolor collage

I bought this water color collage piece at a resale shop a few years ago. My Mom always really liked it, so I decided to make her one to hang in her entryway.

To copy the original, I bought a pad of watercolor paper, and colored different sheets of paper with my prismacolor water color pencils in greens, blues, and purples.

To achieve the layered mountains in the artwork, I ripped the colored pieces of watercolor paper in wavy lines and began layering them on top of one another creating the collage.

Once I created a mountain range that I liked I ripped some pieces of printed scrapbook paper and a shiny piece of red foil paper to tuck between the mountains, as in the the original. I then mounted the piece onto a brown piece of artist's paper and framed it.

Below is my piece, hanging at my Mom's house. It was so easy to make, it reminded me of a grade school art project.