Saturday, August 28, 2010

Tie Back Tutorial

Have you heard that McDonald's commercial on the radio lately? The one where the girl is really indecisive? The wide array of McDonald's menu options must really get to her... picking out a big mac shouldn't be that hard. But I had a moment just like her the other day. Ryan and I have been doing our best in decorating the house with neutral colored big-ticket items. This way we don't have to switch out the sofa or the bed, but just the accessories that go with them. Our master bedroom has mocha walls with a dark cherry bed, so we decided to accent with white, tan and various blue tones.

Buying accessories hasn't been a tough task at all...a blue vase here, a tan pillow there, but the massive expanse of white curtain was getting to me. Gorgeous as our Ikea curtains are, we needed to add something to them. But what? At first I grabbed some blue ribbon we had stashed in our wrapping department (i.e. the unfinished storage area in the basement), but it was just too bright and awful looking. I then used some burlap scraps leftover from another unsuccessful project and it was ok at first, but looked too much like we were having a farmer's market in our bedroom. So I let it sit for a few weeks.

And then something magical happened...a trip to Hobby Lobby. Ok, so the trip wasn't too magical, I really just needed to get some glue sticks, but wandered into the sewing and fabric area. After passing through the wall of buttons and knitting supplies, a stream of light came down from the heavens onto the bargain fabric bin. (so maybe it didn't happen exactly like that, but I can dream). The perfect fabric was teetering just above a scrap of dinosaur fleece for only $4.99! It was exactly the right amount I needed and the colors were gorgeous. I took my bargain bin fabric home and made some wonderful tiebacks for our white curtains. No sewing required! Seriously...I used some hem tape and my trustyiron and 30 minutes later was happy with the final result. What do you think?

This is how the project started: iron, fabric, tape and random other things


I didn't use all of the tape...but I sure don't have much left.

The beautiful result!

1 comment:

Sara Rubin said...

So beautiful - nice work Amberly! The long contemplation period obviously paid off with some inspiration. Can't wait to see them in person. :)