Curtain hanging: no holes or rods required!

Hey all!

So, I’ve been doing a bit of fun home redec these past couple of days.  We moved the bedroom to the back of the house so that we didn’t have to put up with crazy road noise with buses driving past every 15 minutes, our next door neighbour leaving at 6:20am, drunk party goers etc etc etc.  BIG bonus is that I get the former bedroom as a sewing studio – can we say UPGRADE!

The new room is much bigger with mirrored closet doors so I can actually see myself when I fit, rather than dragging all the thread/fabric triangles etc from the craft room all over the house to find a mirror.  I took this opportunity to redecorate a bit – one of my favourite things to do.

However, I am two things – thrifty and crafty (and renting).  So when it came to hanging sheers, I had to get resourceful.  Here’s a short tutorial on how you can hang lovely sheer drapes in your house without holes or expensive curtain rods (really, they are ridiculously priced for what they are).

You’ll need:

2 panels of sheer curtain fabric each approximately the width of your window and whatever length you like

**I used prehemmed curtains which already have the top hemmed for insertion into the curtain rod – if you buy plain fabric, you’ll  have to hem it yourself.

A package of 3M decorating hooks (the clear, small kind for hanging Christmas lights)

Some cotton tape cut to half the width of your window

Something for sewing (be it machine or by hand)

Here’s what you do:

As in the note above, if you buy plain fabric and not prehemmed you’ll need to make an open hem at the top of the panel for the cotton tape to run through – 5cm or so should do.  It’s really important to cut the cotton tape to exactly half the length of your window to ensure it stays taught.

Attach a safety pin to one end of the cotton tape and run it through the top open hem.

Sew each end securely to the panel (I used a machine and back stitched several times).

Distribute the gathers evenly.  There – you’re done with the panel – easy.

Now for the window.  My window is 128cm across, so I used 9 hooks spaced approximately 15cm apart.

You want to use enough so that the top bit doesn’t sag between hooks.   Stick the hooks to the wall about 3cm above the window top and about 3cm past the window on the ends.

Now, my curtain panels had little slits in the back for curtain hooks.  If yours don’t just cut little horozontal slits in just the back portion of the top hem where you want the curtains to attach to the hooks.  Slide the hook into the slit and have the cotton tape sit inside the hook.

Do this to either side first. **Hint: for the middle hook, punch the hook through both layers of fabric so that you can use it to hook into the other panel.

Then distribute the gathers evenly and do this for the rest of the hooks in the middle.  If you measured correctly, your curtains should sit fairly taught on the wall, like this!

Repeat for the other panel.  Now you have beautiful sheers that look like they’re hanging on a rod but can be easily removed when you move or change your mind!  Yay!  Thank you 3M!

I did a similar thing to the craft ro…sorry, sewing studio, but gathered them all to one side and tied with a cute blue velvet ribbon.

The possibilities are really endless. The only thing I wouldn’t do is use a fabric that’s toooo heavy because the hooks couldn’t handle it.

Hope you found this useful and I’d love to hear any other hints you may have to decorate a rental without the damage!

Enjoy,

Kat

Plum jam…with lime!

Ah, it’s finally autumn…when the temperatures dip to a cool 29 degrees (yes, I am from Canada).   This also means getting out the ol preserving pot once again!!!  Because god knows you don’t want to boil 10L of water when it’s 40 degrees in your house already

Today, I though I’d take advantage of stone fruit season here in Perth.  I also didn’t want to make a huge amount of jam either, so I thought I’d see what I could do with two humble plums and one humble lime…a cost of about $2.50.

You’ll need:

2 large plums (I used some large dark ones, for the life of me I can’t remember what variety sorry!!!) – about 450g

1 lime (try to get organic or off the tree so they don’t have waxes/sprays) – zested and juiced

450g sugar

Cut plums into wedges and bring to a gentle simmer in 150ml water.

Simmer for 20 minutes.  Add in zest and juice of lime and sugar.

Bring to a rolling boil and boil for about 10 minutes or until set.  Once set, ladel into warm, sterilized jars.  Cap jars and put in a large pot with boiling water and boil for 10-15 minutes.  Remove jars and cool overnight – make sure you hear a pop when the jars seal.

Easy peasy!  The jam tastes great.  Chris said “Oh, that’s good – and not too sweet”…so there, my first review.

So let’s see…you spent $2.50 for two jars of yummy homemade jam you couldn’t buy in the shops even if you wanted to (I’ve never seen lime and plum jam in Woolies!) – good on ya!   I’m liking this small batch preserving.  You get to try a lot of combinations and you never make too much.

Enjoy,

Kat

Guest Post – The $90 Bike Trailer

Hello dedicated SSNT bloggers, Katherine’s dear husband here.  Some months ago I built a trailer to tow behind my bicycle, so I thought it was time I provided a bit of a how-to.  But first some, background.

As you have probably gathered, this household is a fairly DIY-minded place.  Not only this, we represent the 5% of Australian households that don’t have a motor car in the garage.  We get by in car-centric Perth by riding our bicycles to work, the shops or to a friends house, and for long trips we take the motorcycle (A Honda CBR1100XX Blackbird).  But what happens if we find an awesome (blank) on the side of the road and want to bring it back?  In the past we have carried it home on foot.  This limits us to scrounging junk from a 1 km radius maximum.  One afternoon I found a stack of concrete reinforcing mesh which I thought would make a perfect passionfruit vine trellis, so I proceeded to attach it to my bicycle with whatever I found lying around.  An old two-wheeled shopping cart served as a satisfactory trailer, and I got home OK.

But there had to be a better way.  Around the same time, I had finished my first series of racing electric motorcycles on the east coast.  I had my bike, Voltron, shipped back in the crate I’d sent it over in.  Sadly the crate did not fare so well – the morons who moved it tried to place something mighty heavy on top and damaged the bike inside!  So I disassembled the crate and decided to recycle the steel for something else.  By the way – I brought this steel home from DiLena’s in the same manner as the image above.  First needed to buy a welder.  I can’t weld to save my life, so the only way to learn is to get a cheap buzz-box and give it a go myself.  After spotting a good welder for $90 in the Quokka (the Perth printed-equivalent of Craigslist) and having the seller bring it over for me (he insisted I not bring it home on the back of the Blackbird) I was ready to start making a mess!

The trailer needed wheels.  Real wheels.  So I went to my most favourite place in Perth – the Balcatta dump.  Here, it’s like hard rubbish collection week, every day of the year!  I found two identical kids bikes which I bought for $10.  I took the front wheels and forks and returned the rest to the tip.  These were welded to the side of a frame built from ex-crate steel.

The triangle gave it sufficient length to carry home any good stuff 3-4 metres in length.  It took some creative welding to get the forks to stick to the side of the frame.  I then used a section of plywood from the crate as a floor in the trailer.

I bolted lengths of steel down the side to protect the wheels and give it some rigidity.  Next was the tow-hitch.  I found a length of square steel at the tip and welded this to the underside and also to the triangular section.  In order to clear the rear wheel of the bicycle and attach to the seatpost, it needed to be crooked.  This took some guesswork, and additional steel straps were welded for added strength.

A bit of paint hides the duck-poop welds J  The seatpost attachment was a bit tricky since I needed freedom to move in all directions.  It’s simple and effective, but limits me to fairly broad turns.  Not a big deal on a Sunday, but you wouldn’t want to be doing a U-turn in peak traffic.

So how does it handle?  Pretty good actually.  One of the wheels was a bit buckled so another trip to the dumb secured another straight wheel which makes for a far smoother ride, especially as speed.  How fast can you go?  Well with an e-bike towing it, you can cruise along with an empty trailer at 40 km/h.  Just be careful when you need to stop in a hurry, especially if there is 45 kg worth of potting mix in the back.

One of the first things I brought home with the trailer was some timber to build a battery soldering jig; but that’s another blog post J.  All up the trailer cost me a $90 welder, some electrodes and $10 worth of junk from the dump.  It might not look pretty but I know it works.

Happy welding!

CHRIS

**And that, ladies and gentleman is one of the many reasons why he’s my DH

 

Tall girl clothing blues…

Hi there!

This content has been moved to my new blog!  See you there!

Kat

Green up your windows!

A friend and work colleague of mine sent me a great link about building your own hydroponic window gardens…perfect for those of you dear readers that are in apartment buildings or don’t have a yard to dig up.  Here’s a great site dealing with the workings of the window gardens.

If you’re keen and want to build your own, it’s not too difficult and only costs around $30 for a 3-plant system.  Here’s a link to a pdf describing the step-by-step methods with nice colourful illustrations.

3 plant window garden HOW TO

Just goes to show if you’re keen you can garden just about anywhere…I reckon it would make a great herb garden

Enjoy,

Kat

Refashionista FTW!

I religiously follow refashionista.net.  This woman refashions a new thrifted item EVERY DAY!  Today I saw a post of hers on how to make your own laundry detergent!  I’m going to try this for sure!

http://refashionista.net/2011/12/08/day-160-diy-laundry-detergent/

Check it out!

Enjoy,

Kat