Valances & Valentines

I'm back, with photographs! Poorly done photographs, but at least you have something to look at. My apologies--I've done what I can in Photoshop, but it's just hard to take a picture of your window when it's light outside!

This weekend I finally got around to putting up the curtain rods I purchased for the kitchen. Up until 6 months ago I still had the valances the old owner of the house had made. They were pretty but just didn't match my decor. In an effort to motivate myself to get something new up there, I took down all the old valances and threw them on my back deck, where they are still sitting, covered in snow. I'm afraid that I just got used to looking at the naked windows so that whole motivation thing wasn't exactly as successful as I had hoped. Well, it finally worked--so I guess you could say it was successful, just not in as timely a manner as would have been ideal.

JoAnn's had curtain hardware on sale last weekend so I bought two curtain rods for my kitchen. On Saturday Quin and I put them up, which was unexpectedly difficult and resulted in more random holes in my wall and a few bits of salty language. For window dressing, I used 3 of my beloved vintage printed tablecloths. They are all different patterns, but all have red, blue and yellow as the main colors so I think they still coordinate. I folded them roughly in half, gathered the ends with a rubber band and tied them to the curtain rods with wide wired ribbon from my stash.

I love how the one over the sink looks. I do need to trim the ends of the ribbon. The two over the slider didn't drape as well as I would have liked, plus their patterns are such that the main designs are in the corner but they will have to do for now. I love that I can display some of the tablecloths that I adore and that I can change them out at any time! Even Quin commented on how much he liked them, so that's a great compliment! Next, I think I may try this cute idea using vintage hankies and embroidered napkins on the window in one of my spare bedrooms.

This afternoon I have another check-up with the Lasik doctor. I've been wearing these darn soft lenses since January 1 and they will map my eyes against my October visit to see how my corneas have changed, and thus how close I am to getting the surgery. Due to our schedule it will either have to be before the middle of February or the first weekend in March. I'm nervous, but excited!