our $25 kitchen curtains and command center

Today was the day that the "final" big "moving in" product was completed.  It was my task to find the perfect curtains/binds/shades for our kitchen bay windows.  Being a Brindley (meaning we are money pinchers), I looked high and low and near and far to find the most affordable curtains.  That was a huge task in itself not to mention finding cheap, cute ones. 

I liked the idea of a roman shade, but those suckers are $30 to $50 each and just for plain colors!  I wanted some sort of pattern since our kitchen pretty much are just "blocks" of colors.  Nothing other than the Auburn platter had more than one to two colors on it. 

Probably a month or so after moving into the house, Mamski so graciously told me about this website with "self-made" curtains.  The best part was that there was NO sewing involved.  (I must confess that I do own a sewing machine, thanks to Daniel, but I have only used it once.  I don't feel like I have mastered sewing in a straight line yet.)  So I headed over to the website and found a roman shade-like curtain.  The woman gave a step by step on how to make them too!  She recommended using liquid stitch to keep the ends from fraying after cutting the fabric.  I thought easy enough and now I have to find the perfect fabric!

After another month or so, I remembered about some bed spreads from Urban Outfitters that I had bought last year.  Leah had told me about huge pieces of fabric being sold for $4.99 at Urban Outfitters.  I ended up buying 3 blue/green striped and 1 red/yellow striped patterns, all for less than $20!  I had thought about making a shower curtain and window curtains from them while living in the apartment, but that never happened.  Once I remembered that I had "free" fabric already in my possession that made the process 10 times easier.  AND it matched our kitchen!  I was on a roll to have cheap and cute curtains!

After an esitmated 5 to 6 hours worth of work, the final big move-in product was complete!  I never knew that I could love curtains as much as I love these.  Take a look for your self.

last night- taking a look at what was to come

Liquid Stitch-this stuff was SUPER easy to use!

the final product!

a closer view of the middle window.  look at those beautiful marigolds that my husband brought home for me.

Here's a breakdown of the cheap and cute curtains:

-one bed spread of fabric from Urban Outfitters:  $4.99

-3 spools of navy ribbon from Hobby Lobby:  $2.00 each (they were 50% off)

-Liquid Stitch from Hobby Lobby:  $2.50 (also 50% off)

-3 tension rods from Wal-Mart:   $3.97 each (11.91 total)

Grand Total:  $25.40 plus tax

So I got all 3 for basically the cost of one at a store...a really cheap store.

Command Center

In the last post I talked about our new command center.  Well, it also got a huge boost to being completely finished, but I thought I would let you see what I have done so far.

We still need a calendar which will come in 2010.