Vertical Blinds Hack, Part 1

For some reason, apartment designers in Los Angeles have a love affair with wall-to-wall carpet (yuck!) and vertical blinds (yuck!). Most apartments I have rented have both. I can't do much about the carpets, but I went on a mission to figure out some way to hack the hated vertical blinds.


Why do I hate vertical blinds? They are bland. They are sharp. They always get twisted up, so you have to straighten them all every time you want to open them. They are harsh in the manner they block light. They don't really guarantee privacy, especially when the cats are sitting in them, as cats do. Ugh! I hate them!

I had a conversation with my manager one day about getting rid of the vertical blinds. He basically told me that I was wrong, that curtains were inferior to vertical blinds, and I must keep them.

But I love curtains. So, compromise.


For these curtains in my bedroom, I very carefully removed each of the evil vertical blind slats, and stored them under my bed. I then sewed these curtains around the vertical blind hardware.

Apart from having the strangest curtain rod ever, they open and close just like regular cafe curtains. I love them!


The tabs are closed by big buttons, so I can take them down to wash them occasionally. You can see here how the curtains are, indeed, hung around the vertical blind hardware.


Making the buttonholes was incredible fun. I highly recommend a one step button-holer over a four step button-holer. You can seriously, like, read a book while it goes to work.


So easy, and such perfect buttonholes.


The fabric for these curtains is by Premier Prints, and it is intended for nurseries, but I really like it in my bedroom, which I've done in sea glass colors.


If you are like me, and also hate vertical blinds, but are also cursed with them, here's one way to deal with them. I will post my second way soon.

Henry 2.0

I can't believe I never blogged about Hank! I just found these pictures from January and just realized I never posted them. So, meet Hank.



Hank is a sideboard, a console, an entry table, what Apartment Therapy likes to call a "landing strip." There are too many names to describe this piece of furniture, so we just call it Hank.

As in, "Jessica, where are the scissors?"

"The scissors are in Hank, Geoff."

Before there was Hank, there was Henry.



Henry was a hideous, stained, beat up dresser we used to keep by the door. It needed replacement. I found a small sideboard at an antique shop in Hollywood for forty-five dollars. It was the wrong color. I have become obsessed with making everything in the living room the same red-gold chestnut color, and this color is not in fashion right now. So I began my first refinishing project ever.



You can tell this is January, and not right now, because look at how skinny and flexible I am. Stripping is hard work, but it was worth it.



The color it came in was surprisingly similar to the color of Henry the dresser, which is a terrible gray-beige. Why was this color ever popular?

I stained it in a 50/50 mix of Minwax "Red Chestnut" and "Gunstock" (what is Gunstock? I do not know). Stripping it was somewhat difficult, but getting the stain perfect took several tries and made me a bit dizzy and I will probably never do it again. Also in the process I think I also messed up the concrete on our patio and relinquished our deposit. Eh, the cats were going to destroy the rug anyway... right?

The color did come out perfectly. I love the wood grain and the hardware.



Also, I have a question.



Since I'd never done this before, I forgot to deal with the inside, which is kind of a mess. I'm not doing any more staining! What should I do? Should I paint a picture in there? Decoupage something g33ky? What do you think?

Bats and Sups, Watching Over Me

Check it out, a g33ky craft! Sorry it's been a while.

I bought these frames with prefab prints on Ebay. They were nice, I guess, but too pedestrian for my taste.



I painted them with the same warm white paint as the shadowbox, then I cut the silhouettes out of black card stock and glue sticked them over a piece of blue card stock and cut them to fit the frames. Easy and cool!

I used these iconic Jim Lee covers for reference.



Well... for tracing, actually. I bought a Light Tracer back when I was an animation student, and it has been my best friend for line drawing ever since. I use it to clean up original art in addition to stealing other people's.

This is all part of my "saloon wall" collage, which is now above my chest of drawers in the bedroom.



I think I'm going to replace the gold prints at the bottom with more photos, since I'm not feeling the gold. But I am loving the symmetrical randomness.

Surprise?

Due to not having pictures, and also not really posting much, I haven't gotten around to announcing I'm pregnant here yet. It's gotten a bit late, but for those who don't know.. surprise!



I'm due October 5th. That's only two months away! My mother-in-law sent me a package of things recently, including this fabulous quilt. She made it for my husband when he was a baby. She takes really good care of things, it's amazing how old it is. I love the lace around the lamb.

Farewell my Comic-Con

I didn't get to go to Comic Con this year. Silly me, I forgot to pre-register. It was weird for people to be going to Comic Con without me! I didn't have a costume anyway.



I just put together this Ikea shelf for all of our action figures, some from Comic Con's past. We had a lot of fun arranging them... check out Spiderman and Vash on the left.

We still managed to do something g33ky this weekend... Geoff and I went to Chinatown, and he bought a Final Fantasy Mini figure. He is completely obsessed with them. He got Tifa. Here she is, waiting to go up on the shelf.



Tell me about Comic Con. Was it awesome? Or was it overrun with tweeny Twilight fan girls??

Little facelift

Did a little background change on the website. I love the linen background on Design*Sponge so I did my own take.

I think Wednesday really, really is my last day of work, as I've run out of things to do. More blogging soon?

Surprises in the Closet

Hello everybody. It has been a while. I've been very busy... if you want to see what I've been crafting these past few months, go see G-Force :)

I have been doing some crazy spring... well, summer cleaning. While manically going through my bedroom closet, I found an old shoebox, and in that shoebox was my wedding bouquet, all nicely dried and preserved by my cousin. Here is a picture of me, my cousin Dagmar, and my bouquet.



The bouquet was in surprisingly good shape. Before I left for my honeymoon (three years ago!) I asked my cousin, my Maid of Honor, to "take care" of the bouquet for me. I basically just meant hang it upside down for me and see if it dries out, I don't know. But I was being, ahem, kind of a "bride" that week, so I think Dagmar was a little scared of me. And so she did a really great job drying out my bouquet. I think she used the spray and everything.

So I finally pulled out that shoebox, and did something with my bouquet.



I hope you are pleased Dagmar! I think it looks great. I had this shadowbox lying around that I had never used, but it was medium oak which did not work in my bedroom. I bought some Folk Arts "warm white" paint and decided to go Shabby Chic with it. Because what is more Shabby Chic than dried flowers?

This Friday should be my last day of work, probably for a long time. Hope to blog again soon!

Jewelry Organizer via Threadbanger

I got this idea from Threadbanger. It is a jewelry organizer made out of an 8x10" picture frame I got at Ross.



I made this for a close friend for a very, very late birthday present for my friend Lissette. The Threadbanger version just hangs earrings, but I added necklace hooks to the bottom of mine. The hooks are made from re-purposed paper clips.



Check out these earrings. I got them from my aunt a while back; they are authentically from the 80s. They are like crazy plastic peacock feathers. My cats thick they are tons of fun, but sadly, I do not have pierced ears. Good-bye crazy 80s earrings, I hope you are appreciated in your new home!

But Please Don't Smash This Pot

While I love Zelda, I do think it is curious how it encourages breaking and entering. Why is there always money in the pots in people's homes? Why do those people not care if you come in, break their pots, and take all their money?

Still, when I decided I wanted to edge a design on the side of the jar I use to hold my laundry quarters, a Zelda pot naturally came to mind.



I used Armor Etch to scratch in the design, following this method, which I heartily recommend over the contact paper method described on the package. In progress:



And in action:

Good-bye Galactica

Battlestar Galactica signed off for good on March 21st. I have some problems with the ending... mostly the missiles ex machina, and the, um, head Starbuck? But overall it's a good show and a magical fantasy ending doesn't really ruin the whole thing.

But I digress. Ron Moore makes a cameo appearance in the final episode, and my blog got a lot of hits from this because my Ron Moore photo is on the first page of a Google image search. I have just been informed that he is actually wearing the exact same shirt in my picture as he did in the episode.



Behold the geeky comp my friend Mark whipped up. See the gray shirt with the red starburst there? Yeah! And we are in the same order and everything, it's like we were psychic :)

Homemade Chai Mmmmmm

I recently became obsessed with making a real masala chai at home. The obsession was worthwhile. I'm home sick right now, enjoying quite a few decaffeinated cups.

Here's the recipe for a batch:

6 cups water
2 cups milk
3 tablespoons sugar
6 tea bags
herbs:
6 green cardamom pods
6 cloves
4 peppercorns
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick

In a stovetop pot, bring water to a boil, and dissolve sugar 
completely.  Add tea bags and spices.  Turn off heat, cover 
and steep for ten minutes.  Add milk and enjoy!

If you are unfamiliar with some of these whole spices, here's a picture. They are so pretty and good smelling.



I found the star anise in the ethnic foods aisle. McCormick sells cardamom pods, but they were crazy expensive. I actually found mine for quite a bit cheaper at Whole Foods. Yes, that Whole Foods. They have surprisingly good prices on spices, as they only sell their own label.

Belated Birthday To Me

Last month I took part in a "January Birthday Swap" on Craftster. I made a present for someone else born in January, and then someone else made a present for me.

I made my person this book-inspired pillow:



The pillow is inspired by this beautiful work by Patchwork Pottery. The book exterior is quilter's cotton, and the "pages" are corduroy.



I admit my literary ignorance, that I did not know there was a writer named "A. Trollope" but I did giggle a little bit as I embroidered this.

I got an awesome blue scarf from Craftster user Yelutci:



Again, sorry it has been SO LONG since I have last posted. Expect more of the same, unfortunately, as I will be working heavy overtime until May, and barely have time to wash my underwear, let alone craft. Sadness :(

Yummy Bath Salts

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted! The longer it went, the harder it became. Like a giggle loop. So, here, I'm just going to go...


I made bath salts for Christmas. They are shockingly easy! Here is the recipe.

3 cups epsom salt
1 cup baking soda
1 cup sea salt
Food coloring
Essential oil

In a large mixing bowl, add 3 cups of epsom salt, 2 cups of baking soda and 1 cup of sea salt into the bowl, and mix them with a wooden spoon. Add food coloring of your choice to the mixture, one drop at a time, until salt is desired color. Then add essential or perfume oil, to taste.


I made cutesy labels using my recycled linen paper, and packaged them in ziplock bags inside white lunch bags. Easy present.