Anyway, so heres a few things to keep you busy while I finish up my photo season…

Check out this FAWESOME (fabulously-awesome) video tut on transferring photos to wood blocks.  SO FUN.  Plus, the way she put the vid together is GENIUS as well.

Then embellish a tshirt with a bleach pen!  See more on that here.

If you’re looking to make some awesome Christmas ornaments then check this salt dough recipe out and give her a whirl! So fun.  I’ll be making some for my tree for sure!

Have fun and we’ll see you later!  Happy Holidays!

Here are some pics from my Halloween party last week:  :)  Daniel and I were a scarecrow and a crow:  He looks pretty creepy here!

Well I have been getting a lot of feedback on my newly redesigned master bedroom (thank you for all the nice comments!) and so I thought I’d better get the headboard tutorial up for those of you who are interested in DIY-ing one yourself.  This isn’t so much a tutorial on how to build an upholstered headboard (there are plenty of tutorials out there on that) but more how I handpainted the chevron-ikat pattern onto my plain white headboard fabric.   Since I’d never done anything like this before, I pretty much guessed my way through it so my headboard is far from perfect.  To be honest, I’m thinking about completely repainting it with my leftover fabric.  But, lucky for you, I can walk you through what I did right AND WRONG and you can learn from my mistakes and make yourself something beautiful.  The best part is you can use this fabric painting technique to paint anything, headboards, pillows, chairs, t-shirts, whatever.

Cost: Varies by project.  Mine cost about $18 for the fabric and paint

Supplies:

• White or other light colored fabric.  I used 2 yards of white cotton twill (from Walmart for $5/yd) for my headboard.  Natural fabrics work best and allow the paint to bleed a little bit.
• Craft paint in your color choices.  I used a limey green and a tealy blue.
• Textile Medium.  To mix with the craft paint to make it soft like fabric paint.  (Or you could just save yourself this step and buy fabric paint instead).
• A medium sized flat/square tipped craft paint brush.
• A spray bottle with water in it.
• A water bowl to rinse brushes.

Okay then.  Heres what I did:

1.  I first upholstered my headboard in the white fabric by staple-gunning the fabric around to the back of the padded headboard.  Then I layed my headboard flat on the table to start painting.

2.  Next I got a square tray I had (you could also use a right angle ruler if you have one) and trace the corners of it onto my headboard lightly with chalk.  DON’T use chalk to do this.  It sucked up my paint wherever it was and made some really distinct paint lines that I don’t love on the finished project.  You could try a pencil or just dots of the paint color you’ll be using to give you the guide you need.  I’ll be honest though.  I did this only for the top portion of my headboard and then got lazy and didn’t do it to the rest.  I wish I would’ve though because some of my lines got whompy because I was winging it without a guide.  Thats what I get for being an impatient crafter.

3.  Next, working in small sections, spray the fabric lightly with water.  I would recommend testing the amount of water you need to be spraying with the amount of bleeding you want to get on a scrap piece of fabric before you try this on the real thing.  I didn’t do this and learned as I went.  I got the right hand side of my headboard pretty soaked and then learned that “less is more” and so the left side has less bleeding (which I like better).  You probably only need to spray a section two maybe three times and no more.  You don’t want the lines to become tie-dyed looking, but you do want the colors to bleed slightly into eachother.

4.  Now, holding your brush so that the square tip is on its side (or that the tip of the paintbrush looks like a vertical line), dip your brush into the water and then into the first paint color (after mixing it with the textile medium per the instructions on the bottle).  Then follow your guide using up and down choppy strokes on your fabric.

5.  When you have a section done, switch colors and do the same thing with the next color except push that color into the first color a little bit.  You may have to give it a squirt with the water bottle if the fabric has dried.

6.  The ikat-ness of the design is dependent on how you’re holding your brush so practice first on a scrap piece until you feel like you’re getting the look you want.  Then paint your piece (in my case an upholstered headboard) alternating between wetting the fabric with the squirt bottle and painting on the lines in an up and down stroke.  (You can see in the image below where I wet the fabric too much and the paint bled a little more than I would’ve liked.)

And thats what I did!  I would like it much better I think if I did it again and really took my time.  But, hey, not too shabby for a first try I guess.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the tutorial!  Learn from my mistakes and go do your own!

Filed under: Art Tutorials, Interior Decorating Tutorials, My Interior Decorating Tagged: antlers, aqua, Art Tutorials, cheap, chevron, chevron ikat, chic, craft, crafting, crafts, creative, decorating, diy, diy chevron, diy ikat, do-it-yourself, easy, eclectic, fabric, funky, green, handmade, handpainted fabric, how to paint chevron, how to paint ikat, how-to, ikat, interior design, mod, modern, orange, paint, painted headboard, retro, teal, textile medium, thrifty, tutorial, upholstered headboard, white, zig zag ]]> http://seecatecreate.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/diy-handpainted-chevron-ikat-upholstered-headboard-tutorial/feed/ 0 seecatecreate DIY chevron ikat headboard OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA handpainted ikat headboard OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA http://seecatecreate.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/a-quick-little-fashion-show/ http://seecatecreate.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/a-quick-little-fashion-show/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:17:43 +0000 Cate http://seecatecreate.wordpress.com/?p=1340 ]]> The kids were down for naps and I had just hung up and put away all the laundry which meant everything I own was accessible.  I started looking around my closet with that really proud feeling that you get when you have NO DIRTY LAUNDRY.  You need to relish it because of course it won’t last long.  Anyway, I suddenly got the urge to try on outfits and see what I could come up with out of my wardrobe.  So, I thought I’d take pics so I can remember the ones I like.  So heres my little fashion show!  :)  If you’d like to know my TOP 10 THRIFTING TIPS go here.

So what do you think of my dyed skirt, spray painted shoes, and thrifted threads?  :)  I love my happy little closet.

P.S.  To see the black bib necklace tutorial go here.

I decided to spruce up my room with a younger, funkier, Jonathan Adler meets Domino Mag (I miss you Domino) vibe and some really happy colors. The problem, like usual, is that I don’t have much of a decorating budget so I had to get creative and try to use what I have as much as possible.  I knew the first thing I wanted to do is change the wall color.  I decided to keep it neutral and lighten it up so I went with a light gray.  This decision was also largely based on the fact that I happen to have a bunch of leftover gray paint from Peyton’s room that I knew I could lighten up and use.  I also knew I really wanted to make the walls come to life so I decided to take it one step further and paint subtle gray horizontal stripes on 3 of the 4 walls.  I thought this would be a BIG time consuming job, but it actually wasn’t that bad.  And the lines came out really crisp, even on my textured walls, thanks to this tutorial I found over at Living With Lindsay.  I did this all by myself so I imagine it would be much easier with a helper.  I figure my husband will be less annoyed by my constant redecorating if he doesn’t have to do any of the work, so I do things while hes not looking so he can be amazed at the result later!  Anyway, my stripes are 11.5″ wide.  I simply measured from the baseboard up 11.5″, then marked it, and measured up another 11.5″, marked it again, so on…until I had marked off the whole 3 walls, putting marks every 4 feet or so.  Then I just layed the tape on the wall as straight as possible from mark to mark.  I’m sure its not perfect, but I’m impatient.  I think it turned out pretty dang straight actually.  I left the tall wall, opposite my bed, stripeless because A. The weird ceiling line would’ve made the stripes look off at the top, and B.  I decided to put bookshelves against that wall that would pretty much cover it anyway.

Well, I’ll just show you the pics and walk you through the rest of what I did….

As a reminder, heres what my master bedroom looked like before:

And heres what it looks like now!  SO much more fun and fresh I think.  And it definitely is a better reflection of me and Mr. Hubby’s style:

Didn’t the stripes turn out great?  I super love the subtle little FUN they bring to the walls.  So obviously with practically NO budget I kept all the original furniture.  The first and most noticeable upcycle is probablly the DIY’d ikat chevron headboard.  Yup.  I made that baby.  I looked and looked for cheap fabric that I liked and just couldn’t find any so I hit up Walmart’s fabric section and found some great white cotton twill.  Then all it took was a little craft paint, mixed with some textile medium, and a bit of creativity.  To be honest, I like but don’t love it.  I was too impatient and so my lines are a bit whompy.  I have leftover fabric so I might just do it again.  I dunno.  Anyway, the tutorial on that is coming soon if you want to paint your own!  (I’m sure you’ll learn from my mistakes and do a better job!)

I was happy to keep my lime green chairs and create a pallet around them so I distributed pops of green around the room.  But I also LOVE tealy-blue and threw that in there too, spray painting the nightstands, and adding other teal accents around the room.  Then I wanted just a little bit more so I added in just a few PUNCHES of tangerine orange.  It was tough to break out for my “4 colors in a room” box but I figured since gray, black, and white are really just neutrals in the background, 3 more fun colors wouldn’t hurt.  :)

The black frames used in the pic above I got from BigLots for $5 for 2 (I also saw the same ones at Joann’s for $20 for 2 so I got a killer deal).  I just wrote on some canvas panels the letters to spell “ME” and “YOU” and flanked the room with them to fill up all the extra wall space surrounding my bed.

I debated for a bit on what to hang above my bed.  I didn’t want anything too busy to compete with the vibrant headboard and striped wall.  I thought about putting the framed “Me” and “YOU” there but decided I wanted something a bit more simple and small.  Also, I was afraid Daniel would think the room was getting too girly so I thought I’d throw him one and macho the place up by stealing the antlers (thrifted and painted for $4) from Sawyer’s nursery and mount those above the bed instead.  (Don’t worry, I just replaced them with the Pinterest project from this post and my wire dear head looks great in there).  I LOVE them in here.  I think they float perfectly inbetween my DIY’d hanging lamps and give just that touch of bohemian but in a sophisticated way.  Daniel likes them too.  Mostly because he says, “The bedroom is meant for mounting.”  Haha!  ;)

Okay, I just wanted to talk about these pillows really quick!  Little orange guy is just some fabric I have wrapped around a pillow right now but I will soon get to sewing.  But the big gorgeous fringed beauty I found the other day at Home Goods in the clearance section for $7.  YES  $7.  You can’t even buy a down pillow form at the fabric store for $7.  I just love it.

This is all pretty much the same.  I still want to do something more to that dresser.  Not sure what though, but it works great the way it is too.  The little teal lamp was on sale at Target for about $20.  The picture frame was also a Target buy on clearance for $2 as well as the new duvet cover set that was (my big splurge) about $60.

Above is a quick look from the other side of the room.  Below is a look at my bookcase wall that once was my gallery wall.  I ordered the white bookshelves from Walmart (in store they only had the 11″ deep ones and I wanted the 9″ deep ones) for $35 each.  They did site to store so I didn’t have to pay any shipping.  Originally I wanted to back them with some fun fabric or wallpaper (probably something black and white to allow the decorative accents to pop) but once I assembled them and got them up I realized I rather like them backless with the gray wallcolor showing through.  I’m not sure if I’ll leave them this way or decide to go ahead and back them, but here they are for now.  I’m still working on the styling, but heres the gist:

I am also debating on building legs for my shelves to stand on to make them look a bit more custom and give them more height on my tall wall.  I dunno.  I’ll probably just be too lazy.  Most of the accent pieces on the shelves were things I already had although I did pick up a few colorful vases and such at Hobby Lobby (50% off) and Ross.  I probably bought about 6 things all under $6 each.

And thats pretty much it!  I LOVE my new colorful funky room, and so does the hubby which is always a plus.  ;)  I also mixed up some leftover paint from Sawyer’s nursery and am going to be painting my master bathroom shortly in a tealy-blue color.  Of course I’ll post it when I get to it!

A completely new look for under $300!  So happy.  So chic.

First here is the banner I made.  If you’d like to make your own, you can use my bunting template found here and upload it to Picnik and add any letters in any font that you’d like.

Next I made a sign for the Creepy Photobooth I’ll be doing to get great pics of everyone in their costumes.

There were a lot of free printable tags out there but none that suited my needs so I made these little babies up.

(I left the bottom right label empty so you could fill it yourself in picnik if you wanted to.  Also, I just realized I spelled “labels” wrong.  Duh.)

Then I made this sign to put on the refreshment tables.

I also made this little sign to put on the voting box for our games and contests.

And there you go!  There are all of my FREE HALLOWEEN PRINTABLES for you to use at your Halloween bash!  I hope you enjoy!  Happy Halloween!

“Eeeekkkk!!!  Boooooo!!! 
We want YOU 
to join us for a fun night
of food and fright.
No children allowed
In our big kid crowd.
But come well dressed
in your Halloween best.
And you could win a prize
(or meet your demise).
So come if you dare
We don’t mean to scare.
We really truly hope
to
see
you
there!”

I know.  You’re stunned by my genius aren’t you.  I give you permission to use this if you decided to throw your own “Big Kids Boo Bash”.  Yes, that is what I’m calling it.  And yes.  I’m aware that I’m a gigantic nerd.

After I sent out the invites, I started browsing Pinterest (my latest online site obsession) for decor and food ideas.  I can’t believe all the cute and amazing things people are coming up with!  I’m blown away.  Anyway, that just made me more excited and so I made my way to my nearest Dollar Store to see what I could come up with.

Can I just say again how much I LOVE THE DOLLAR STORE.  It is a magical place.  Especially for Halloween items.  I found tons of decor and serving wear for my party and it was cheap cheap cheap.  I got home and got to work.  Even though my party is a couple weeks away still, I couldn’t wait to get the decorations up.  I’m totally in Halloween mode now.  I even found costumes for my hubby and I (he is going to be a scarecrow and I’m going to be a crow) at the thrift store this weekend with my sis-in-law Courtney.  I seriously want to just live in costumes for the rest of the month, thats how excited I am.

Anyway, would you like to see my decorations so far?  I used a lot of what I already had with a few things I made and several things from the Dollar Store.

Here is my mantel:

I made the bats by folding sheets of stiff black felt ($0.99 at Hobby Lobby) in half and then cutting out a bat shape (half a bat shape).  Then I folded the wings out and attached them to the wall with sticky tack.  Easy peasy and I LOVE it.  I made larger and smaller bats.  I didn’t use a template, but if you wanted to find one, just google image search “bat silhouette” and you’d find plenty.

I sketched the giant skull profile onto a black painted piece of mdf I had in the garage.  Its in white chalk so I can change it whenever I feel like.  I eyeballed it from an image I found google image searching “skull”.  Peyton calls it a “bone-head”.  Haha!

The Happy Halloween bunting banner I made from my bunting template and Picnik.  I LOVE the skeleton font.  So great.  I printed them on white cardstock and then cut them out and glued them to black cardstock bunting I cut out with pinking shears.  Then I attached them to white paper ribbon I bought at the Dollar Store.

The tombstones, spiderwebs, skulls, and creepy cloth all came from the Dollar Store.

I also made these big spiders out of crepe paper streamers and pipe cleaners.  I want to make a bunch more and have them crawling up my curtains in my living room.

Heres a quick look at my entryway.

Then Spiderman (aka Peyton) popped in to say “hi”.

And heres a closeup of my felt bats.

Pretty creepy huh?!  I’m super excited and can’t wait for the party.  Check out my next post for all of my FREE HALLOWEEN PRINTABLES I made for the party!!!  BOOOOOOOOOooooooooo!

I HATE drama.  Except when it comes to fashion and design.  Then I LOVE drama.  And I’ve been meaning to make me something dramatic for a while now.  I think this loverly black bib necklace does the trick!  I’ve been loving bib necklaces for quite some time, especially the versatility of them.  Embellished shirts have been wildly popular but can also be somewhat spendy.  A great bib necklace is just the way to add a great embellishment that is temporary and looks almost like it is part of your top.  So heres what I did…

Cost: About $8

Supplies:

• Beaded embellishments.  I found my 3 star/flower embellishments at Walmart in the craft department for about $2.50 each.
• Black felt.
• Scrap fabric.  I used leftover black chiffon.
• Chain and necklace findings, or you could use black satin ribbon as the tie.
• Scizzors.
• Hot glue gun and glue.

Have fun and remember, glue gun burns will fade, but your bib necklace will last for years!

First, check out this circle wrap skirt by The Crafting Chicks.  I love it because it can adjust to your size (if you are in the baby making phase of life like myself) and there is NO ZIPPER (which is also great since I’m not sure if I know how to sew in a zipper yet).  Yeah, I know the tutorial is for a little girls skirt but I figure it wouldn’t be too hard to make it for big girls too.

Then for a nifty decorating tutorial/inspiration, check out this honecomb-ish painters-tape wall treatment done by The Vintage Laundry.  Super fun.  Love it.

Then I LOVED this paint by numbers with Picnik tutorial by The Ambitious Procrastinator .  Completely AWESOME.  I’ve actually been wanting to do something just like this with Picnik for a while.  I LOVE the idea of using this technique to do a wall mural or a VERY LARGE piece of art.  VERY VERY COOL.

Anyway,  there you go.  This should keep you busy for a a bit then…  See you again soon!

While at Walmart the other day, I quickly ran through their new-again fabric section.  Can we all collectively say “yay!” for Walmart bringing back the fabric department?!  Anyway, I was about to walk out (I was of course shopping with the boys again and they had already had enough), when I spotted this purple and red chiffon print peeking out of a pile of colorful fleece bolts.  I grabbed it to check it out really quick and loved it even more when I unrolled it a bit and saw the lovely native american-esque pattern.  I know.  I’m sort of becoming obsessed.  It kind of had the same feel as my maxi dress I just did (and LOVE) and when I saw that it was only $1.50 a yard I HAD to have some.  I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I got 3 yards and went on my little way.

Well, last night I pulled it out and took a look at it again.  I love the big oversized drapey t-shirts and ponchos I’ve been seeing on Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie and such.  And my new chiffon draped so nicely.  So I drew up a little plan and decided to make a wispy, bohemian, poncho-shirt, or as I like to call it, my shoncho.  :)

Heres what I did:

Cost: $1.50 (You only need about a yard of fabric for this shirt so check remnant bins to get some great chiffon for CHEAP).

Supplies:

• About a yard of chiffon fabric (or other lightweight drapey fabric that you love).
• Scizzors.
• Pins.
• Sewing machine.

1.  Refer to my little sketchy plan below.  It basically shows how to do it.

2.  Here are some extra tips.

TIP 1:  BE CAREFUL!  Chiffon is delicate and tears and frays very easily.  So be slow and steady when feeding it through the machine.

TIP 2:  I used the finished edge as the bottom of my shirt so I didn’t have to zigzag the bottom.  If your chiffon piece has a finished edge, utilize it to save you time.

TIP 3:  Don’t forget to zigzag stitch (or serge if you have a serger) the INSIDE seams as well as the outside raw edges so they don’t continue to fray.

And thats it.  This took me less than 30 minutes to throw together.  And I’m pretty happy with it.  :)  What do you think?  You can make this.  And its great for FAT days.

P.S.  I also made the red necklace and the pink clip-in hair extension.  For more of my jewelry and accessories, see the Fashion Tutorials section on the sidebar.