DIY Madness!

I have NEVER in my life considered myself to be a crafty person.....in the slightest. At all. That was my sister's thing -shout out to you, Lindsey! hehe-.
When I was growing up I just wanted to play the piano all the time and didn't have any interest in arts and crafts.

[Quick trivial fact: I actually know how to sew the old fashioned way as well as with a sewing machine. I have patched a ton of shoes (because for some reason my big toes stick up when I walk and therefore create holes) and I have also patched a ton of jeans and leggings (oh, the glory of having curvy thighs that rub together when you walk and wear the fabric down) ]

However, Phillip and I paid a huge security deposit the other day on an apartment that we'll be moving to in August (I promise this is relevant). We both fell in love with it and told the owner on the spot that we would sign a lease. I will post pictures once we're moved in come August :)
We want to stay in this apartment for as long as possible, which inspires us to put a lot of effort into decorating it and making it look cute.

Which brings me to talk about my first (and definitely easiest) project, which I shall call: HOOP WALL

I saw this picture on Pinterest:

How you do it:

1. Acquire Fabric

2. Acquire embroidery hoops of varying sizes

3. Cut fabric to size

4. Place into hoop & tighten

5. Hang on wall

That's all.

Um, easy enough? Especially for a "non-crafty beginner" like myself? Yes. Super easy.

Lightbulb moment: I got the idea that instead of paying $12 a yard for fabric, I would just go to D.I. (Goodwill) and buy some huge dresses with a cool pattern and cut them up! 

(I'm sure everybody does this & I'm just behind on the crafting times...I thought it was brilliant, though!)

So, Phillip actually picked out this HIDEOUS dress, with an AWESOME pattern on it (he did well!):

$4.00 well spent, if you ask me!

Next, since we had just paid that huge deposit for our new place we had like 4 cents to our name (over-exaggeration, don't worry!) which allowed us to, sadly, only purchase one embroidery hoop from the craft store.

Here is the one hoop we could afford (at a whopping $2.00). 

I had never seen an embroidery hoop before, they're neat!

I then cut the fabric to size, and just slid it into the hoop!

The Finished Product:

 (Um, I didn't realize my preggo stomach would be visible in this picture...well then...)

But that's not all!!

Oh no, this fabric is SO versatile that the other side has the opposite design!

So, if I wanted to, I could easily take this fabric out, turn it around, and have THIS color fabric showing

BE AMAZED.

I didn't feel like taking the fabric out and doing it all over again (I don't want to stretch the fabric too much) so this part would obviously be against the wall (after I did some trimming/stapling/whatever)

Anyway, once I can afford more hoops and take more trips to D.I. then I can have a better collection for my HOOP WALL.

Stay tuned for more excellent DIY projects....including re purposing freaking old furniture!