A Soft Place To Land | It's Great To Be Home

Even though most of our friends and family live right here in Dallas, from time to time we get a special treat and I get to play hostess when someone drops by to stay with us for the weekend.

My friend Abby is our most recent house guest – she was in town to attend our friend Jen’s engagement party (which you saw here). Prying Abby out of Austin for the weekend is no easy feat, so I wanted to make sure that she felt right at home while staying at our house.

When you’re staying at someone’s house, it can get really old always having to ask them where everything is – so when Abby came to stay, I decided to cut out the middleman (me) and just give her the goods. That way she would have everything that she needed right at her fingertips!

It turns out that I already had everything I needed on hand, so this project cost me zero dollars. Here’s the little goodie basket that I whipped up in no time for Abby’s bathroom:

I started out with this cute wire basket that I snagged at Home Goods awhile back for only $7.99. I was instantly smitten when I saw it, and had to have it. Months later, inspiration struck and I knew it would be perfect for a guest goodie basket . . . with just a few little changes, of course!

While I loved the deep wood handles, the problem with this little guy is that he was an off-white color – it didn’t really have the spa-like vibe that I was going for in the jack ‘n jill bath. No worries, it was nothing a little spray paint couldn’t fix! The first step was to mask off the handles with painter’s tape:

Then I busted out my trusty silver spray paint, made especially for metal like this wire basket:

Just a few quick sprays with the paint (check out those lovely plastic gloves) and the basket was ready to bask in the sun and dry. Don’t ask me why we still have that old rusted thing that’s supposed to corral gardening hoses – but I’m glad we do, ’cause it was the perfect place to hang the basket to dry.

You may have noticed that I always spray paint outside on the grass – that’s because of all those lovely fumes. If I’m painting something flat on the grass, like a mail slot, then I’ll usually put something under it to protect the grass. But in cases like this where I can just hold the to-be-spray-painted-item in the air, I don’t bother protecting the grass – so far, none of the little paint particles have marked the grass and even if they did we could just mow them away. However, I do always make sure that I’m far away from the house or the fence – I don’t think a big blotch of spray paint would do much to help the exterior of our house!

The last step was to add a few goodies to the basket – things like lavender shampoo and conditioner, soap, toilet paper and washcloths are sure to make any guest happy.

So there you have it! Using just items that I had on hand, I was able to whip up this pretty little basket in about an hour. Not only was Abby a happy camper, but now I can just replenish it for each new guest – how easy is that?

Ready to make your own welcome basket? What little things do you do for your guests to make them feel at home?

This post is shared with A Soft Place to Land.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but there are definitely a few (and by a few, I mean a lot) of rooms in our house that have yet to be visited by the decorating fairy. These rooms are bursting with potential, but have been neglected while the hubby and I have been completing various random homeowner tasks such as dealing with leaking pipes, laying sod, and all that other good stuff.

Take the third bedroom, for example. It has great bones – pretty linen-colored paint, crown molding, nice nightstands, etc. – but it’s pretty blah, wouldn’t you agree?

While I love the sage green bedspread, those white and black floral curtains were doing absolutely nothing to give the room any character. All that changed when I decided to whip up some fun, colorful curtains for our sad little bedroom with this gorgeous fabric:

I know what you’re thinking – Huh? I didn’t know this chick could sew??

Well, you’re right. I’m no seamstress. The last time I touched a sewing machine was during a summer in college when my mom taught me how to make some pillows for my dorm room. Lucky for me, it turned out that sewing curtains is just about as easy as it gets!! Here’s how I pulled it off:

1. Decide how long you want the curtains to be. With this particular window, we had already hung a curtain rod with 85 inch long sheers, so I knew that I wanted the curtains to also be 85 inches long. I checked all of my measurements before I ordered the fabric so that I could make sure that I would have enough fabric – patching random pieces together to make the curtains long enough was definitely something that I wanted to avoid. Since I was making two 85 inch curtain panels, that meant that I would need 5 yards of fabric – and I went ahead and ordered an extra yard “just in case.” I can use any extra fabric for another project.

2. Give yourself a little wiggle room. Once I was ready to start making the curtains, I laid out the fabric on the floor and measured 90 inches. I decided to cut each curtain 90 inches long to make sure that I had ample room for hemming and the rod pocket top. If you’re going to hang your curtains from curtain rings, you can give yourself a little less wiggle room.

After I measured out 90 inches, I folded the fabric over itself (with the non-printed side facing up) so that I had two matching 90-inch pieces of fabric, and a little left over. I cut off the extra material and set it aside, and then cut the two pieces of fabric apart right at the fold.

3. To pin or not to pin. Being new to sewing, I decided to pin the hem on the first curtain. Since the fabric was already laying face-down, it was easy to get right down to work. I just folded the fabric over so that the non-finished edge was completely hidden and only the printed fabric would show on the finished curtain. A pin every few inches did the trick.

After I sewed the first curtain, I realized that I could easily skip this step – by just holding the fabric taut while I pulled it through the sewing machine, I was able to maintain a pretty even hem. Once you feel comfortable using the sewing machine, I definitely recommend skipping the pinning step, as it will save you a lot of time on an easy project like this.

4. Sew easy. Now it’s time to hit up the sewing machine!! For me, the most intimidating part of this whole sewing process was setting up the sewing machine (winding the bobbin, threading the needle, etc.) – luckily, my machine came with pretty great instructions and I had the machine up and running in no time. I just used the default stitch (a hem stitch) and pulled the fabric through the machine, taking out pins as I went along. Seriously, that’s about all there is to it!!

5. Make a rod pocket. Once I had the entire curtain hemmed, I folded over the top edge of the curtain to form a pocket for the curtain rod. I measured three inches all the way across the top of the curtain and stuck in a few pins to hold everything in place. Then I ran it through the sewing machine and the pocket was finished in a jiffy!

6. Admire your handiwork. It’s not often that something so simple can make such a transformation and give you a ton of satisfaction. The quick and easy addition of some DIY curtains quickly gave our third bedroom a dash of personality that we can build upon in the future when we finally get around to decorating. In the meantime, it’s a welcoming space that any guest would enjoy.