yellow – Page 2 – A Smith of All Trades

No-Sew Tablecloth

February 9, 2013February 8, 2013 Jessica Smith

No-Sew Tablecloth

We needed a new tablecloth in the Smith household BIG TIME. I only have one tablecloth that I like, and therefore only one that I use. So I am always always always washing the darn thing. But I love it! Too bad no one sells any cute tablecloths anymore. Target let me down. Amazon let me down. WalMart let me down. Everything else is either way expensive (and still ugly) or some plain color (boring).

So my neighbor and I went fabric shopping and we found an awesome fabric that picks up the blues I love and the green in the kitchen. Perfecto!

No-Sew Tablecloth hem tape

We also found some SUPER hem tape that is able to be washed — totally necessary for a tablecloth.

Here are your directions to make your own tablecloth. Buy fabric. Buy hem tape. Iron a hem. Iron in hem tape. DONE!

Make sure you are hemming the nice part of the fabric onto the underneath of the fabric.

No-Sew Tablecloth iron

For real, it is that easy, although it does take about an hour. I got two yards of fabric that was 54″ wide — I didn’t trim any off for my rectangular tablecloth. Then, I started ironing a hem onto one edge. Don’t hate me for being the world’s best eyeballer, but I didn’t measure a single thing. I simply eyeballed all the way down the edge. It is freakishly straight.

No-Sew Tablecloth corner

The only tricky part about the tablecloth is the corner. Well, really all four of them. When you get to a corner, fold one edge over the other and cut at an angle. Put your hem tape and iron. Let it cool, then add more (if there are un-hemmed spots) and iron again.

Once your edges are all hemmed, iron the whole cloth and throw it onto your table!

No-Sew Tablecloth 1

Isn’t this fabric great?! I love how it pulls in the color of my kitchen.

No-Sew Tablecloth 2
Well, I bought four rolls of hem tape and only used one…. guess who is totally making another tablecloth…. if I can actually find another fabric I like. I am sooooo picky.

Have a great weekend!!!

Craft Projects, Jewelry, Life

Ravens Win the SUPER BOWL! … and another set of earrings, too.

February 4, 2013 Jessica Smith

What a SUPER weekend (pun intended)!

If you follow my blog, you know my husband and I are really big Ravens fans. Now we are Super Bowl champs!!! So exciting. We spent all weekend getting ready to host a few friends and mentally preparing for what was an awesome game. We are even going to the Super Bowl homecoming parade tomorrow in Baltimore!!!!

Even Remmy had a great time during the game. He scored lots of delicious treats and got to pretend he was a person, which is pretty much his favorite pastime.

While not in football mode, we also helped my mother-in-law paint her textured ceiling in a room she is redoing. The ceiling was dingy from years of fireplace soot hitting it, and now it is bright and white as snow. I much preferred painting her ceiling than ours — the texture really hides any imperfections.

OK, let’s talk about this room. 1. The ceiling is beautifully white, right? And isn’t the texture awesome?! I really like this kind of ceiling versus the popcorn ceilings. I’m not a fan of those. 2. Look at that fireplace. It is gorgeous. And, my MIL just had a gas fireplace retrofit into her existing fireplace that is absolutely stunning. I have fireplace envy. I wish we could flip ours on with a switch, especially since our family room is so darn chilly.

We’re going to help paint the walls soon, too. This room is going to be so pretty when it is finished! BTW — it used to be covered in dark paneling! You’d never know.

To round out this completely all-over-the-place post, I wanted to update you on the earrings post I did on Friday. I am totally ecstatic about making my own stud earrings now — I should have made them forever ago!

Anyway, I wanted to show you all another fun way to make these button stud earrings. As I was making a bunch of new pairs this weekend, I found that you can take buttons with the attachment on the back (I swear I used to know the name of these) and use it with a button with holes to make a combo button earring.

Find two sets of buttons you’d like to combine…

… then cut the loop off the back of the button that will go on top.

Put some E6000 onto the button on top, then line up the two prongs of the top button with the holes in the lower button. Then, press them together and let the glue harden.

Attach a stud with the same glue and let it dry overnight.

OHMYGOSH Are these cute or what!? I made them for my friend Amy. Love love love them.

Button earrings

I also made a set of sister earrings 🙂 Mine are on the left, Em’s are in the middle, and Allie’s are on the right. So cute!

I’ll post pictures from the parade tomorrow!!!!

Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts

Museum Admission Earrings

January 28, 2013 Jessica Smith

On our trip to Philly this weekend my little sister took us to the Philadelphia Museum of Art where we got the coolest admission tags ever. OK, I’m not a huge museum goer, so maybe all museums give this cool little things out. Either way, I thought they were super neat. Depending on the day you go to the museum, you get a different colored tag to fold over your collar. Basically, it let’s the guards know you paid to get in and are allowed to be there. Some obnoxious, snobby people like to give the guards a hard time about wearing these on their collars, but I thought they were freakin’ awesome. Pretty much as soon as we got them I called dibs on them for crafting.