You know what? I did a little more than sew a few scrunchies.

- July 14, 2011

After my last post, a friend reminded me about a purse I sewed while in college. I had to go dig it up and everything else I made with the same fabric.

Here’s the backstory. I was living in an apartment with a friend, and I wanted to spice things up a little in my room. So, I painted pink stripes on 2 the walls.

Wow, right?? I only did 2 walls, but it was fun and gave my room some character. (BTW, that green chest is now painted white and is used as a changing table/dresser for Aliza. The fun part about that – it’s not even mine!! I hope Aimee wanted me to keep that after “borrowing” it in college!!)

Then I wanted some curtains to go in there. I thought it would be fun to make them myself for some reason. It was a lot of work and I had a few friends help me get it all done.

I started with these 4 swatches. I picked the last one on the right and bought a ton of fabric. I made these (fully lined) curtains on the floor of my apartment.

The finished product!!

I had so much fabric leftover, I made 2 pillows, a purse, and these file cabinet cover things. I obviously LOVED the fabric and was willing to take it everywhere!

More on the purse later, but after making all that, I moved. I wanted to use my curtains again and wanted to get REALLY crazy with wall colors. I picked out 5 paint colors that were colors in the curtains, and bought a pint of each, got my sister, and we went to work.

Ready for this?

Oh yes I did. I can hardly believe it either. How tacky!!?? It took my sister and I about 10 hours to finish it. I totally loved it. You can even see from the picture – I really used that purse and the pillows too! The best thing about this room is that I didn’t even have to paint over it when I left!! The apartment complex did it!!

Now these same curtains of inspiration, are in my daughters bedroom and I hope they stay for a long time. I’m pretty proud of those curtains and all the crazy ideas it gave me to do with my rooms.

Fully lined and heavy duty!!

Now, to the purse.

I didn’t want to just sew the 2 bottom pieces together and make a skinny bag. I had big ideas back then too. I wanted it to have a flat bottom. I had to enlist one of my friends’ sisters to help me sewing that – I really can’t take credit. I think she was in fashion merchandising or something and had to take a sewing class. But it was my idea to cut the plastic top of a notebook to size and glue it into the bottom so the purse would stand up. I has been in there for years until this morning when Aliza ripped it out.