Last September, when Phil came home from the hospital and we were nursing, we’d spend a lot of time on the couch opposite our front door. Feedings in the early evening were kind of irritating, because the sun was juuuuust low enough to laser blast you right in the eyes through these slim little windows on either side of the door. Being the classy Martha Stewart type I am, I scotch taped some cloth napkins up to block the blinding light.

It was super adorable looking:

I knew I wanted to do something more permanent in those windows, but not too permanent. Or expensive. Because we live in a rental, you see. And apparently, it took over a year to come up with a solution. But I finally have one!

Did you know you’re only 1 cut, 2 long seams, and 4 buttonholes away from new curtains? Oh you totally are, my friend. Introducing…

Command Hook Curtains in an Hour!!!

Materials needed:

• One curtain panel (I bought a single panel one of these for $10 at Target) wide enough for both slim windows
• Scissors
• Iron
• Straight pins
• Sewing machine that can do buttonholes
• Four 3M Command Hooks (I used the small size)
• Ruler and pencil

How to Make your Command Hook Curtains:

1) Measure your windows, measure your fabric. Take a minute to plan this thing out. My windows were each about 13.5″ wide, and I wanted a tailored look as opposed to something flowy. So my planned finished size was 14.25″ wide. DON’T FORGET TO ADD TO THAT! The finished long edge of my curtain pieces had a 1″ wide folded over, folded over again seam so the fabric wouldn’t ravel. To mirror that on the cut side, I had to add 2″! So my final cut pieces were each 16.25″ wide! Also think about where your buttonholes are going to go.

2) Look at your measurements again. Measure twice and cut once, that’s the saying. Because if you cut wrong, you’re gonna have to do some kind of finagling to fix it, or go buy yourself a new curtain panel. Neither is a fun option.

3) Cut your curtain panel! I folded my curtain panel in half vertically, and measured in 16.25″ in from that finished edge to make one cut. So each of my panels would have a cut edge and a finished long edge, and there’d be a long scrap of material that was too skinny to do anything with (that had two cut edges). Make sense?

4) Take care of the cut edge. Use your curtain panel’s finished long edge as a guide. For me, that meant folding over twice and pressing, then sewing the seam. Your curtain panel may look different, do whatever looks best for your particular curtain panel.

5) Measure your button holes, and sew em at the top of your curtain panels! Where yours are placed depends on your particular curtain setup and personal preference. For my project, I did button holes about 1/2″ from the top of the curtain panel, and about 1/2″ in from each edge. If you’re doing this project for a wide window, you may want more than two buttonholes across the top so your curtain doesn’t sag.

6) Measure out your Command Hook placement on the wall, and stick em up! Use a pencil and ruler to make sure they’re nice and straight.

7) Hang your curtains!

8) Tell everyone how awesome you are!

By now you know Hearts and Laserbeams is your go-to for graphic design, art and illustration. But did you know we also offer professional photo editing and color correction services?

I spent time last week working on some photo edits for this week’s CAbi Canary, which is a great blog that showcases the CAbi (Carol Anderson by Invitation) line alongside fashion and lifestyle inspiration. I got the green light to share the before and afters with you, and I’m excited to share that photo editing is more than just airbrushing the butt off Beyonce!

A lot of the photo editing process is correcting the yellow or blue tint that happens when a camera isn’t white balanced before taking the picture. Note the overly yellow tones of the before picture, and the more neutral whites I was able to achieve through the wonders of Photoshop. The model’s clothes were also color-corrected to uniformly match the company’s look book, so customers don’t think they’re ordering a greyish purple sweater from their CAbi rep and get a surprise when a lavender sweater arrives!

Great photo editing does more than fix that yellow tone, though. Zooming in on the original before photo here, I discovered all kinds of little pieces of lint on the model’s skirt and removed them piece by piece. If your business is selling clothes, they need to look tip top! It’s also all about fixing little things in the background that may not be super noticeable at first, but look so much better when they’re touched up. Look in the background of the before picture, and you’ll see an open desk drawer with paper sticking out of the top of it. In the after picture? Drawer neatly closed.

Here’s another example of adjusting the photo’s color and tones, as well as major tweaks to the clothing colors. The pieces looked so much different from the actual clothing colors in the original photo! You’ll notice in these examples, also, a bit of editing on the models as well. Time and care is taken to whiten teeth and eyes where needed, correct skin tone, and smooth out any super shiny bits.

That being said, if you’ve got a picture you’ve taken for your xmas card that could use some photo editing love hit us up! No job is too small. We’re also available to make your Photoshop dreams come true – have a picture in your head that you’d like to put together for a friend or family member this Christmas? We can make great things happen. Check out this picture where I made my husband Mr. T:

The above Mr. T pic isn’t my best work, but it might be my funniest. I did this one a couple of years ago, and if I did it again it would turn out even better! It’s just one of my favorite examples of the funny things you can do with a little Photoshop.

Almost a year ago, I came off of maternity leave to a job that was drastically different from the position I loved before having Phil; it was instantly obvious because of the crazy levels of stress the job had absorbed in the few months I was out that I couldn’t stay, and I needed something else to pay the bills immediately. (Obviously, getting a job writing short sentences was totally out of the question.)

I sent emails around to ex coworkers, bosses and contacts in the apparel industry and three days later, was a full-time freelance graphic designer. This was in part thanks to Remy Holwick, who understood and supported my work-at-home-to-take-care-of-Phil dream. She was one of the godsends that gave me more than enough design work to keep me busy and pay my bills literally the second I asked for help.

It’s time to repay that folks – it’s time to support Remy’s dream. Please pay a visit to Remy’s kickstarter page and pledge what you can. If this monk dress isn’t made a reality, I will cry.

(Images from Remy’s Kickstarter project page)

Here’s a little sneak peek of style guide stuff I’m working on this week – check out some fun apple characters!

I’m so close to being done cleaning up poses for the new Hearts and Laserbeams style guide! This little guy is by far my favorite new robot pose:

Just two more poses to clean up before I can move on with this project!! But first, I will be doing a whole lot of relaxing with the remainder of the holiday weekend. How was your 4th of July?

I’m so close to being done cleaning up poses for the new Hearts and Laserbeams style guide! This little guy is by far my favorite new robot pose:

Just two more poses to clean up before I can move on with this project!! But first, I will be doing a whole lot of relaxing with the remainder of the holiday weekend. How was your 4th of July?