Obsession of the week... Silver foiling or some say Silver Leafing

My dear friend Kristine sent me this AP story about silver foiling on furniture and I love it! I have written about this technique before, it was my first Obsession of the Week post about metallic silver and mirrored silver. I still love this look, but have not been successful at recreating it. However, after reading this AP story I have new hope! I am very excited to try silver foiling on this vintage1950's end table. I purchased the table for five dollars and hopefully after some silver leafing it will be worth much more! Silver leafing can be purchased at most craft stores and online. 

I plan to purchase the silver leafing this weekend. With the research I have done online, it says a project such as this can be completed in just a few days! So wish me luck!

Let there be light...

Lately I have been very busy with home improvement projects and one of them was sewing a roman shade. My apartment has beautiful 72" inch tall windows. Two of them have beautiful floor length raw silk curtains my mother made for me a few years ago. The other window is an eye sore!  In the summer it holds my huge window AC unit. Since the unit is so big, I needed  a shade that is both functional and stylish.  A shade that I can open to let in light and close for privacy. Since the AC is only in the window in the summer my biggest problem was the length of the shade or curtain. You will see in the picture below when I used a full 72" inch curtain it was too long and it blocked the vent of the unit, but if I used something shorter it wasn't long enough for winter when the unit is removed.  Also, you can see how I had to bunch the extra curtain on top of the AC unit and I hate the way that looked.  It looked too much like a college dorm to me.

My solution to this dilemma is a relaxed roman shade. Custom made for the full length of the window, but functional to pull up when the AC unit is in and long enough to pull down when it is removed. I just love it! I choose a neutral cream heavy weight cotton fabric with a beautiful sage green decorative trim to match the other raw silk curtains that hang across the room.

eye sore window before

window after much more grown up

roman shade

decorative trim

This was the first time I tried to make a roman shade and since my sister has made hundreds of them she was able to give me great pointers! The best advice she gave was to hang the shade as I sewed on the plastic rings. She said "having it hung keeps the fabric from bunching" and she was right! To see more roman shades check out her blog OneHauteKid.blogspot.com.