this time it's my profile on the wall in late afternoon.
Monday, October 31, 2011
capture2011 :: no. 215 :: 10.28.11 :: more shadow play
this time it's my profile on the wall in late afternoon.
Friday, October 28, 2011
capture2011 :: no. 213 :: 10.26.11 :: errand day
i usually try to avoid running errands around noon so that i can eat at home (to save money and calories). but on wednesday, i was far from home at the noon hour. i'm not going to lie: i love me some taco bell. who am i kidding——i like fast food in general!
p.s. i was not paid or strong-armed in any way to write this! :)
Thursday, October 27, 2011
operation color and home-sewn pillows
happy wednesday! i'm back to share another living room project. this time it is pillows.
we've been "moved in" to the living room for almost two years, but it has been very bare. when we chose carpet, fireplace tile, and wall color, i didn't have a good vision for the room's color scheme so we played it safe with beigey neutrals on the warm side. add the brown couch and chair and it was total dullsville. the room needed color and life!
the lovely curtains were the "jumping-off point" (sarah richardson, anyone?) for the color scheme: aqua and yellow in addition to greige, white, and brown. so for pillows, i wanted aqua and yellow for sure, and i also decided to add a little pink to make things interesting. i'm so glad ben likes pink!
first, i happened upon a great aqua lumbar pillow at home goods. then i ponied up some credit card points for a few (free!) yards of these two fabrics. i used two old pillows for pillow forms and bought two more down forms from ikea, so my costs were really minimal.
i used this tutorial to sew zippered pillow covers so i can take them off and wash them. (this is also where i sewed the zippers on inside out. oops.)
here's what we ended up with.
we've been "moved in" to the living room for almost two years, but it has been very bare. when we chose carpet, fireplace tile, and wall color, i didn't have a good vision for the room's color scheme so we played it safe with beigey neutrals on the warm side. add the brown couch and chair and it was total dullsville. the room needed color and life!
this was right after we had carpet installed in november 2009. you can call it boring. i won't be mad.
the lovely curtains were the "jumping-off point" (sarah richardson, anyone?) for the color scheme: aqua and yellow in addition to greige, white, and brown. so for pillows, i wanted aqua and yellow for sure, and i also decided to add a little pink to make things interesting. i'm so glad ben likes pink!
first, i happened upon a great aqua lumbar pillow at home goods. then i ponied up some credit card points for a few (free!) yards of these two fabrics. i used two old pillows for pillow forms and bought two more down forms from ikea, so my costs were really minimal.
found here
found here
i used this tutorial to sew zippered pillow covers so i can take them off and wash them. (this is also where i sewed the zippers on inside out. oops.)
here's what we ended up with.
i am excited to show you the next project. it was very time consuming, but it is definitely one of my all-time favorites.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
weekend chores
did you have a good weekend? ours was filled with friends, some yard work, a photography endeavor (more on that later!), and a few sports games. we've been pretty sucked in by the world series!
my last three images for the week were all taken yesterday. kaylee lent me her nifty fifty, which i used for all these shots. i've never shot with such a wide aperture. i like!
capture2011 :: no. 208 :: 10.23.2011 :: pole + saw + ladder
= tree trimming extravaganza. it's amazing how much more open our yard looks with the low-hanging branches gone!
capture2011 :: no. 209 :: 10.23.2011 :: the lopper
this was my tool of choice. ben did the heavy cutting and i trimmed off the small branches. lopping is incredibly satisfying. it's strange.
capture2011 :: no. 210 :: 10.23.2011 :: blurry boy
this is what f/1.8 looks like——and no. 209. i put a vintage filter on this one.
well, i am going to make a cup of decaf, eat a piece of this, and watch the ball game. happy sunday, everyone!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
diy pinch-pleat curtains from tablecloths!
hola! it's been a long time since i've shared a project, no? this was a fun one i completed in july. keep reading and i'll show you how i made pinch-pleat curtains from tablecloths!
first things first. i relied very heavily on this tutorial from prudent baby. and because there is no need to reinvent the wheel, i'll do a fly-over version and if you want more details on how to do this, go there. the instructions are really clear.
so . . . curtains. yes. we have a huge window in our living room——i think about ten feet wide. our contractor mentioned that in new construction, he doesn't like to put in such big windows because large treatments are difficult to find or super expensive. he was right. i got an estimate for roman shades and i might have choked a little bit when i saw the number. eek.
the temporary fix was to find an extra-long double rod (from bb&b) and some blackout shades. this room faces full west and the sun gets really glaring in the evenings. plus, it's where we watch tv, so it is nice to be able to get the room really dark. we lived with these polyester curtains only for a long time.
i started to think about fabrics for this room, but i was really not looking forward to spending tons of money for all the yardage to make curtains so large. then, lightning struck.
we had been using this tablecloth to cover a folding table we were using as a desk, and i just love love love the pattern and colors and i knew i liked it in this room. i had bought it at target for like five bucks. my sister-in-law lauren had also bought it too but wasn't going to use it, so she gave me hers. and luckily enough, they were still available on target.com and amazon. i used an amazon giftcard to buy a few more. (i used four total of the 60" x 84" size, which happened to be both the perfect length and width. so cool. my original one was bigger and i didn't end up using it.)
it was so great to buy tablecloths, because they were relatively inexpensive and already nicely hemmed! it was just a matter of sewing them together (two for each side). the patterns didn't line up perfectly, but that is the tricky part about using such a large-scale pattern. i'm okay with it.
i already had some curtain rings i wanted to use so that the curtains would slide nicely (we open and close them all the time). once i had them sewed up, i hung them and . . . they looked terrible. because i needed so much fabric to cover the window and still have them look nice and billowy, they were all gapped and you could see the blackout liner behind. not pretty.
so i gathered up a bunch of joann's coupons and bought the materials needed to make pinch pleats.
the pleat tape has little pockets that you stick the hooks through. let me show you.
and this is what the front looks like: a nice little triple pleat.
you sew the pleater tape to your fabric. super easy——straight lines! just make sure the pockets face the back. :) once it is attached, make your pleats (i think i skipped two pockets between each prong to make my pleats really defined) and attach the hook on each pleat to your curtain rings. i had to do some serious jimmying to get this to work (my curtain rings had clips).
and here they are! i love how tidy they look. the lines fall really well without a lot of fussing.
i used a nail and a paperclip (i'm super fancy) to attach the fabric to the wall so that the return is nice and clean and to cover the blackout shades behind the curtains. maybe i'll buy finials for the rod ends someday.
but i really like how the curtains look when they are closed. with the pleats, they are the perfect width and the pleats make nice movement. sometimes we just close the curtains, and sometimes we close both the blackouts and the curtains. i could have just attached the blackouts to the curtains, but it is kind of nice to have the option.
so there you have it, folks! as promised, i have a few more projects to share, so do stick around. see you soon!
first things first. i relied very heavily on this tutorial from prudent baby. and because there is no need to reinvent the wheel, i'll do a fly-over version and if you want more details on how to do this, go there. the instructions are really clear.
so . . . curtains. yes. we have a huge window in our living room——i think about ten feet wide. our contractor mentioned that in new construction, he doesn't like to put in such big windows because large treatments are difficult to find or super expensive. he was right. i got an estimate for roman shades and i might have choked a little bit when i saw the number. eek.
the temporary fix was to find an extra-long double rod (from bb&b) and some blackout shades. this room faces full west and the sun gets really glaring in the evenings. plus, it's where we watch tv, so it is nice to be able to get the room really dark. we lived with these polyester curtains only for a long time.
i started to think about fabrics for this room, but i was really not looking forward to spending tons of money for all the yardage to make curtains so large. then, lightning struck.
we had been using this tablecloth to cover a folding table we were using as a desk, and i just love love love the pattern and colors and i knew i liked it in this room. i had bought it at target for like five bucks. my sister-in-law lauren had also bought it too but wasn't going to use it, so she gave me hers. and luckily enough, they were still available on target.com and amazon. i used an amazon giftcard to buy a few more. (i used four total of the 60" x 84" size, which happened to be both the perfect length and width. so cool. my original one was bigger and i didn't end up using it.)
it was so great to buy tablecloths, because they were relatively inexpensive and already nicely hemmed! it was just a matter of sewing them together (two for each side). the patterns didn't line up perfectly, but that is the tricky part about using such a large-scale pattern. i'm okay with it.
i already had some curtain rings i wanted to use so that the curtains would slide nicely (we open and close them all the time). once i had them sewed up, i hung them and . . . they looked terrible. because i needed so much fabric to cover the window and still have them look nice and billowy, they were all gapped and you could see the blackout liner behind. not pretty.
so i gathered up a bunch of joann's coupons and bought the materials needed to make pinch pleats.
the pleat tape has little pockets that you stick the hooks through. let me show you.
and this is what the front looks like: a nice little triple pleat.
you sew the pleater tape to your fabric. super easy——straight lines! just make sure the pockets face the back. :) once it is attached, make your pleats (i think i skipped two pockets between each prong to make my pleats really defined) and attach the hook on each pleat to your curtain rings. i had to do some serious jimmying to get this to work (my curtain rings had clips).
and here they are! i love how tidy they look. the lines fall really well without a lot of fussing.
i used a nail and a paperclip (i'm super fancy) to attach the fabric to the wall so that the return is nice and clean and to cover the blackout shades behind the curtains. maybe i'll buy finials for the rod ends someday.
but i really like how the curtains look when they are closed. with the pleats, they are the perfect width and the pleats make nice movement. sometimes we just close the curtains, and sometimes we close both the blackouts and the curtains. i could have just attached the blackouts to the curtains, but it is kind of nice to have the option.
so there you have it, folks! as promised, i have a few more projects to share, so do stick around. see you soon!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
capture2011 :: no. 204 :: 10.15.11 :: gutter-al
we installed a new roof and siding two years ago, but never got around to installing gutters. oops. they went in yesterday. our exterior is really coming together, and i'm looking forward to seeing it next summer when the plants fill out a little.
and just for fun, here's crissy two years ago when we demo-ed the exterior and pulled off the old gutters.
ricola!
Friday, October 14, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
capture2011 :: no. 201 :: 10.10.11 :: october sky
that's a movie i've never seen. probably because i took anatomy instead of physics my senior year of high school. yeah, that's why.
Monday, October 10, 2011
capture2011 :: no. 200 :: 10.8.11 :: paperback writer
i know people really like kindles and nooks and all (and i understand why), but i really like holding an actual book. there's something strangely satisfying about seeing the cover go from pristine to mangled and watching the creases creep across the spine as i work my way through the pages. but i do work in publishing, so i am completely biased. ;)
p.s. i was so close to forgetting to take this (my last picture) last week. whew. sixty more to go.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
capture2011 :: no. 198 :: 10.6.11 :: let the leaf crunching begin!!!
if you see me walking in a zig-zag pattern, i am not attempting to dodge a missile. i am heading for the crunchiest leaves possible——wherever they may be.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
an ode to vern
ben (my beloved "vern") turned 28 on monday. so while this is a little late, it is no less heartfelt. here we go.
oh, vernie, how i love thee. let me count thy ways:
and of course, you look good while driving the boat.
sometimes, you explore with me and get a little emo. just a little.
you love Jesus. and you love me.
happy belated birthday!
oh, vernie, how i love thee. let me count thy ways:
i love that you try so hard to make me laugh.
dancing outside the window while i do the dishes and you clear the driveway . . .
putting mascara on your mustache to look as seedy as humanly possible . . .
wedding day antics . . .
and other general tomfoolery.
i love and appreciate your willingness to be tech support (for me and many others).
you look really good behind the boat. even when you fall.
and of course, you look good while driving the boat.
sometimes, you explore with me and get a little emo. just a little.
you love all your nieces and nephews.
you love Jesus. and you love me.
happy belated birthday!
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