Still Learning...

I confessed earlier this year that I stink at scrapbooking. And, although it's hard to believe (Ha! Yeah, right!), I stink at home decor, decorating, interior design...whatever you want to call it, I really need help. I have a hard time "seeing" a room finished - I don't even know how to get started, much less have a vision of what a room will eventually look like.

So, you can imagine how stressed I am to have lots of empty rooms - blank canvases, really - and very few ideas on how to fill them. I have been reading a lot of decorating blogs lately and I added some to my blog list on the sidebar in case you would like to read along. There are a whole lot of really smart, creative and frugal women out there who like to decorate. And, they use really great photos - 'cause I'm a visual learner! And, I am copying them shamelessly...ahem, I mean... I am using their creativity and homes as inspiration for my own!

One of my favorite home decor blogs is The Nesting Place. "The Nester" is such a funny writer and she has great pictures and great ideas. One of her favorite sayings is "It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful". How great is that? Sometimes my perfectionism gets in the way of my attempts to make our house a home. I don't even try if I know it can't be perfect.

So, I've begun to try and embrace this attitude and I have created my first set of window treatments for the boys' playroom. How sad is that? I wait 10 years to try something besides blinds and I start with the playroom! But, I decided any mistakes wouldn't matter so much in the playroom! The Nester calls what I have done (and what she does) window "Mistreatments"! She uses beautiful fabrics, decorative trim, upholstery tacks, and lots of hot glue to create window coverings in her house. No sewing involved! And that is a good thing since I don't sew!

Here is my first attempt:


Not too bad, right? This was what I did:

I picked out cute vintage firetruck fabric after about an hour (or two) of looking through the fabric store - I was struggling with finding a print that wasn't too baby or too grown up since the boys share the playroom.

I bought denim panels at Wal-Mart and hot glued the fire truck fabric to the bottom. I covered the seam with some red ribbon. Yep, I glued it on too!

So, I am making some progress with my perfectionism problem, because I am actually happy with how they turned out. Now I just have a few hundred more decisions to make - thank goodness we'll be living here a while! It may take the next 20 years!

P.S. I also shamelessly borrowed the idea for using our old shelves from the entertainment center in the playroom as storage!