Decorating on a budget brings interesting ideas.

The window in RJ's room doesn't have blinds, so I thought I'd make some curtains. I found at Target cheap hardware for a double rod for $7. The actual curtain rods were expensive! So I had a great idea, at Home Depot I bought one 10 foot 1/2 inch piece diameter rod of rigid PVC pipe from the plumbing department. They cut in half for me right there, and I had my two curtain rods for only $1.19. Because they were barely the width of the window, I didn't think of anything to put on the ends. If I had needed to, I thought I could buy two styrofoam spheres and spray paint them and use acrylics to paint giraffe print on them or something, but as it is, there are just PVC stubs poking out on the sides.

One "rod" would hold the valence, so the fact that it would be covered in fabric, I didn't do anything to it. The second rod that would hold the two curtains, however, I spray painted white.

The fabric was $4 a yard and I needed 4 yards, so the greatest expense was there. The giraffe bottoms strips I already had, and I sewed red grosgrain ribbon rows on to add some red, it only took one roll. I had extra ribbon to make the loops at the top of the curtains to hang them from, saving time rather than sewing tabs from the blue fabric. The black out backing fabric was $1/yard crap fabric that worked nicely.

This was the first time I've attempted curtains, and it turned out OK. I hung them up and didn't LOVE them, but they match I guess and serve their purpose to keep out the light so I guess a success.

I made these signs for Halloween. I came up with the saying a couple years ago and made blocks and an upright little plaque thing. I thought the upright would be cute hanging on a wall by an orange ribbon or something.

I painted the wood orange, then put on a weathering/ crackle layer, you can buy cheap crackle medium at craft stores by the acrylic craft paint for $2-$4. Then when you apply the top coat, in this case, black it shrinks and cracks. It is water activated so I think next time I will water the paint down to hopefully produce larger cracks.