Repurposing a Curtain Valence

I decided to face the monster yesterday, and resort and organize my linen closet.  Ughhh!  I don't think anyone looks forward to that job, am I right?  In doing so, I did find curtains that I have been hanging onto for years, some were even from my mom's house.   I looked at them with a repurposing eye, and I thought what could I do with these, there is a lot of good material here, ruffles, lace, there should be something.  I took some of the valences to my sewing room and I took a teal one with a ruffle at the bottom, cut the middle out, made a contrasting strip of fabric to go across the top, hemmed the sides, and ran a decorative ribbon across the top, with extra on each end for ties.  Then I got into my stash of fabric yo-yos circles, remembering I had a red plaid one with scotty dogs that would make a good pocket.  I had just enough of a strip of the contrasting fabric to make a cute little flower to embellish it with, and I have an apron!  I am putting together a tutorial (my first, wish me luck!), I should have it ready in a couple of days.  I also have a couple more ideas for curtains, that I think you will like.  I find cute curtain valences at thrift shops and never thought of what I could do with them.  For instance, if nothing else, if there is a nice wide gathered ruffle at the bottom, why not carefully cut it off, leaving a bit of the fabric it's sewn to, and apply it to the bottom of a little girls skirt?  If you wanted an apron in a hurry, you could just run a ribbon through the rod casing adjust the gathers, stitch across to keep the gathers from shifting, and tie it on!  I see a lot of possibilities.  Maybe from a fancy, flouffy set of cutains, a little girls play dress- up outfit?

close-up of pocket and trim details

apron made from curtain valence

I may have single-handedly defeated the linen closet monster! Now maybe if we look at it's contents with a different eye to repurpose something good from it, we won't dread confronting it so badly.