On Saturday, I headed over to Joann's to take advantage of their class open house where classes are 50% off if you signed up between 1-3 pm. Mark this one off my crafty resolution list - I signed up to take course 2 of Wilton Cake Decorating. I was going to sign up for 2 courses but I thought that might be a bit much as they would be the same 4 Saturdays - one at 9:30 am and one at 1:00 pm. That's just a bit too much cake and frosting preparation for me.
While I was at Joann's, I finally bought the fabric I've been thinking about for months. I had picked up a swatch of it back in the fall, hoping to use it to make curtains for the craft room. But as I have never made curtains before (besides the fabric I "sewed" together using safety pins to make curtains in college), I needed to figure out how much material I would need and what all would be involved. I did the measuring and understood only most of the terms used in the online instructions/tips. I decided to just wing it and get 6 yards of material. Here's what it looks like...
Can you see why I fell in love with it? I'm a sucker for paisley and with these beautiful shades of green and blue and a hint of silver sparkles, I just had to have it. You can click on it to see a larger version.
One thing that I did not notice in the store was the pattern on the back of the material. It's got these flowers and vines in white and sometimes the flowers show up as ghost images on the paisley side. (Click on photos to enlarge - there are a few to see as I don't know which will show up best on your monitor.)
Here's where you can see the ghost images on the paisley side.
I was hoping to make the curtains this weekend, but here it is, almost noon on Monday, and I haven't started them. I'm actually quite close to finishing the Shades of Irish Green baby blanket and that may be the main project for today.
As you can imagine, even with the great sale on the fabric (50% off) and the class, it was a bit of a spending spree at Joann's. I also had to buy a curtain rod (50% off) and cake decorating materials for class (40% off with coupon). I do try to save money when I can.
Case in point - I needed another chair for the craft room so that Sean could also enjoy the room (he reads while I knit/crochet). We found one we liked at Home Decorators but it was $249. Not really a budget item and we couldn't try it out first in a store. So a couple weekends ago, we decided to check out the furniture liquidators place along Route 1. From the road, it looked like there was potential. When we got there, there was a ton of decent stuff and a ton of crap. They buy out furniture from 4- and 5-star hotels who are renovating. There were chairs and ottomans, desks and office chairs, bureaus and big gold mirrors, and shelves of coffee makers. Like I said, a lot of it was crap. Chipped, falling apart or just plain ugly. But a lot of the chairs had a lot of potential. We found this delightful armchair for the craft room for just $30. Yep - $30.
Another bargain item I bought a couple months ago was this cute little ArtBin. I got it for $7.99 from Joann's. It's the perfect size to store my current project plus it has a needle caddy and zippered pouches.
With the curtains and new chair, the next big items for the craft room will be a new cabinet (in which to store all my craft materials) and perhaps a rug. I also need to paint. But these additions and changes are slated for the late summer, early fall. I've got to start saving money for MS&W which is only 2 1/2 months away!
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