New kitchen curtains

I dusted off my sewing machine this weekend to whip up some new curtains for the kitchen.  I've been wanting to replace the valances we had on the windows for a while, but hadn't been able to find anything I loved and thought I'd still love 5 years from now.  So I decided to make them!

I love the tie-up London style, and made one for our guest bathroom earlier this year.  It's so simple and girly, grown up and fun all at the same time, so I decided to use that same style for the kitchen windows.  I picked up some clearance curtain panels at Walmart and ripped out the seams to make them work for my style!

Here are before and after pictures of the french doors leading to the deck:

The side door had a green roman shade, but it was more of an Army green and it stuck out like a sore thumb against the sage paint on the walls now.  Here it is with the new valance:

I love that there are no blinds at the kitchen window.  Even though my view if I'm standing directly in front of it is my neighbor's lovely siding and propane tank, if I turn slightly I get woods.  :)  So I wanted to keep it wide open with just the valance at the top, like it was before.

Lastly, the laundry room.  This is the part where I failed and had to spend more money to fix my mistake.  I bought some curtain panels at Ikea that were 95 inches long, so I measured the laundry room doorway twice, and cut once - just like my dad taught me in his workroom when I was little;  the advice is echoed on HGTV every day.  Anyways, I cut them and hemmed them, but when we hung them up, they were 5 inches too short.  FAIL!  If they were just a little too short I could have lived with it, but 5 inches is way noticeable.  So today we went out and bought some new curtain panels that are just a smidge too long.  I'm not hemming them for now - I'm a little gunshy, but maybe I'll do it eventually.  The length doesn't bother me.  Here are the new curtains:

Not much of a style change, but the green on green bothered me just like with the side door.

This is how I spend my holiday weekends.  :)