Showing posts with label House sigils. Show all posts
Showing posts with label House sigils. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Season 7, Premier party! Let the planning insanity begin! (oh boy...)

Well.... The awesome thing is that my best friends will be driving down from Washington to spend the week with us and will just happen to be with us for their first taste of allll the hooplah.

The stressful thing is that since they will be here, and since it's the second to the last time we will ever be able to host this event, my husband wants to invite freaking everybody.  *deep breath deep breath, deep breath!*

So the planning begins.  July 16th is not that far away and we have lots of work to do if we want to host an amazing party for .... 17 people.....  *deep breath deep breath, deep breath!*

I know, it doesn't seem like a lot... and I already have some great ideas, plus I'll have 2 extra sets of hands to help us with the preparations.  The thing that bothers me the most is the logisticals... I don't have enough plates... I don't have enough chairs... I don't have enough butt space on my couch. .. *sigh* most of these things can be solved with some shopping but we can't be going nuts like we did that one year...  Lets see how much of this we can do on a budget!  Thrift stores, here we come!  Of course, I will be sharing my findings here.

This season we have to do a few very important things:

  • Come up with a theme....  
    • The North Wants You!
  • Create the invitations
    • Done, and super awesome, I might add....
  • Create house sigils for new allies to the North
    • Pending.... not sure if I'll actually get around to doing this for alllll of our new bannermen....
  • Create a killer (pun intended!) menu
    • See the "All About Food" post!  Can't wait to start playing!
  • Plan for favors and things to send home
    • Ordered giant Easter eggs to paint and fill with stuff! I think I have a post on this?  I'll have to look...
  • Figure out annoying logisticals (plates, chairs, butt space...)
    • Already started looking at eBay - My advice, get started NOW if you have this problem!  You can find some amazing stuff and you don't want to wait until the last minute!  
  • Update the Death Pool board (OOOOOO!!!!!  Hodor, nooo!)
  • Work out nitty gritties so nothing gets left out
  • Share my madness with all of you lucky duckies.

As always, I hope this blog can serve as a guide to help you create an amazing party too!  Feel free to snag any images you like for your own party and let me know if you have other ideas you'd like me to add.

Lets get it started!


Thursday, April 14, 2016

2013 Game of Thrones Premier Party Photo Gallery


Oh Jess, where'd you go?

After all of that work we poured into 2013 it occurs to me that there isn't a single record of the results anywhere for the masses to see.  Well, in case you are curious, here it is.  It was A LOT of work and I can tell you that I don't think I will be biting off that much again any time soon....

Here is how it all turned out - 



Scotch Eggs

Made with hot Italian sausage - YUM! "Stick em with the pointy end!"







Grazing Spread

Mixed fresh olives, artisan breads, variety of cheeses, grapes, scotch eggs, and mice (little smokies wrapped in biscuit dough and decorated to look like mice - InnAtTheCrossroads strikes again!)





White Walkers

Iced milk with honey and vodka... didn't last long enough to get a picture of the full glass.....







The Table

That is a Yukani Maize Popper in the background... ahem...














Here, the wall of sigils, our map, and on the tables you have the stained house sigils which were a huge success.

Hearth

Complete with vials of salt, kazoos of winter, and dragon eggs.  



Pork Pie

This was REALLY GOOD except that when I made it, I couldn't find the pepper grinder so like a dork I tossed in WHOLE PEPPERCORNS.  Don't do this.  This is a terrible idea and I have no effing clue wtf I was thinking....  










Dragon Eggs

Obviously when it was all said and done, they didn't end up staying in the fireplace... it was too dark and I wanted to show them off so they when on the mantle.  I never did finish my heated box for them but maybe someday, I'll get the ambition to complete the set.


 And then!




 It was a fantastic night and one we will never forget.  This was the night all other premier parties will be measured to.  Though I may not be able to strive to this level of greatness again, we will sure keep trying!  

Valar Morghulis!











Wednesday, March 27, 2013

S3PP: House Sigil Stories

Season 3 Premiere Party
House Sigil Stories
 

So we have these great sigils that we made for all of our guests and their houses but - there was a piece of the puzzle that seemed to be missing.  A huge piece, like the one that tells everyone how we ended up with these in our possession.  Sure, I could just hand them over and say "Lookie what I made!" but we can take it a step further... and I did. (maybe too far…)


If you're taking this route for your guests, you can make your stories as simple or complex as you like.  Some of these are short and some of them are very elaborate. 

The following stories will be shared with each family before dinner and in this order.  If you're no good at coming up with these kinds of things for entertainment purposes, feel free to nab these one and change the names to protect the innocent.  

A lot of people don't know this but we actually went to Westeros a little while back.  You'd be amazed at what has changed but much of it is still the same.  They have their ways still, their traditions but like most tourist traps, (and Westeros is a giant tourist trap, like Disney Land only for grown-ups...) we found some neat little trinkets to bring home with us.  We also came across some pretty unique things that I think will have some relevance in each of your lives....

 It is said that this sigil was found on the bones of a dead warhorse whose drunken rider had been kidnapped and tortured at the Twins.  They say his rider was very clever in the ways of war and had been a strategic master in order to aid his army in their battles.  They also say that the rider was born with one too many thumbs as all of those in his household are said to have had.  The horse was  also clever, however,  and had tracked down his beloved rider only to find a resourceful kitchen wench from House Frey.  With a butchers knife and some doped carrots, she turned him into a sumptuous stew made from whiskey, bacon, onions and mushrooms, served alongside a warm flagon of mead.    

This sigil was found in the red fork between Riverrun and the Darry.  It is said that the boy who found this sigil had no home and no family and yearned for revenge against the townsfolk of Riverrun for incessant bullying.   He devised a plan to fake status and get his revenge but was thwarted when a teenage black fish recognized him as the smiths lazy good-for-nothing apprentice who had stolen all of the smiths holdings and disappeared in the night on his horse.  Upon returning the squealing lad to the smith and shouting something about being a squire for Ser Cliff of House Brown and how he’d be sorry, the smith promptly beat the boy, cut off all 10 of his toes to keep him from running away and then removed his lying tongue to feed the molten fire.  It’s said that every sword made by the smith thereafter had a ring that carried further than most – earning the smithy the name “Smith of the Singing Swords.”


This sigil was found in the Painted Mountains of Essos by a dwarf logger named Butkis.   The story goes that Butkis was logging in the forest as loggers do when he was interrupted by a large THUD.  Hearing large thuds often as a logger does isn’t a strange occurrence, but this one felt different to him.  He stopped cutting his logs and wondered about to see what was the matter when he happened upon a giant man who was holding his brow with a furrowed look on his face.  The dwarf approached the giant – 20 times his size and shouted up at him – “Hoy, what’s yer trouble, eh?”  The giant sobbed about how his giant wife had kicked him out because he was watching too much Judge Judy and how his kids were terrible teenagers who he was certain were selling drugs, and how he thought for sure his wife was cheating on him with the man that does their taxes.  Butkis didn’t understand a word of what he was saying but offered a good word anyway and asked the giant if he needed a task to get his mind off things.   The giant gladly accepted and the two bonded over tree cutting.  Though Butkis was awkward with the ladies, he still offered his advice to the giant to patch things up with the misses and straighten up his unruly children.  When Butkis returned to Mantarys to sell the enormous pile of wood that was chopped down and share his story, he didn’t think that the men he’s stolen the wood from would be in the crowd hearing his tale.  After he told his story, they offered to buy him a drink for his bravery with facing such a monstrous man and then killed him in a dark alley.


This sigil has an ominous tale – They say the man who owned it turned to a wight and murdered everyone in his village.  It started long ago, far north of the wall in the Lands of Always Winter.  In a small village that is not named there lived a mad scientist named Cave Johnson Jewel who had a liking for strange shiny things.  The townsfolk didn’t understand it and kept their distance – they assumed he was a powerful wizard and didn’t want to cross him.   His neighbor, however, felt pity on the man for being an outcast and thought that there was no real reason to fear him so he ordered his wife to cook up a feast and his 13 children to prepare their humble home for a guest.  When the mad scientist came to visit, he was hesitant to interact – he was awkward and figity but never the less, held their company and expressed appreciation for the warm mead and comforting food.  The wife worked all day to prepare a wonderful supper for the man to make sure he felt welcome in their company and to end the evening, she served what had been her families favorite desert since they came to be – Lemon Cake and potatoes.  They had no idea this would set the mad scientist off in such a way – he grabbed his knife and started slashing at the family – first going for the children screaming “THE CAKE IS A LIE, I WILL NOT HELP YOU, GLADOS!”  He flipped the table over and ranted on “I DON’T WANT YOUR DAMN LEMONS!  YOU WILL RUE THE DAY THAT YOU GAVE CAVE JOHNSON JEWELL LEMONS!  I’M THE MAN WHOSE GOING TO BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!”  Eventually, they could not understand his words as they became angry grunting and hollering.  The man of the house, desperate to protect his family came after the mad scientist with a hunting ax, but not before he had killed their eldest daughter.  In a fit of rage, the man buried the ax into the mad scientists skull and watched his lifeless body flop to the floor of their cabin.   The mans sons dragged the wizards lifeless body into the cold just past the stables and urinated on his corpse in anger.  They threw the remaining cake and potatoes on his body in hopes that it would entice the local wildlife into devouring the him.  The next morning, the youngest boy went out to see if the man was still there and discovered that he was not.  He reported this to his father who said that the wolves must have carried him away.  They went on their business until the next night when the man returned with his experiments – all as wights - and killed everyone in the village.   With lemon cake.  And potatoes. 


This sigil was found in a brothel in Lyse by the son of a Lysine courtesan.   He used it for many years to pad the inside of his left shoe as he had been born with one foot shorter than the other.   It was found later in a bowl of brown along with the shoe.  The wench who found it kept it safe in her bosom until she died by choking on a pigeon bone.  It had been passed down through many generations, many not knowing what it meant until we came across it and it’s history in Myr. 


Lastly - We found this sigil on the path from Winterfell to Hornswood.  It was half buried in the rocks so we dug it up.  When we reached the Hornswood we found their Septa and asked her about this strange sigil.  Sorrow filled her eyes and she asked us to come with her for a sad tale – House Burnorrest was the noblest of the families of the North.  It is said that the Stark family honored this house with land and titles for their loyalty before Torrhen Stark bent to the mad king.  House Burnorrest still showed loyalty to the Starks though, honoring their pledge but the Mad king knew that the only way he could rule is by forcing all Stark followers to swear fealty to the King of the Seven Kingdoms.   The mad king sent an envoy to the Burnorrest house demanding that the family surrender a hostage in exchange for the protection of the king.  Lord and Lady Burnorrest had only one child so the thought of losing their only son was enough to destroy a spirit.  Lord Burnorrest sent a raven to Winterfell to ask their dear friends for advice.  Torren Stark had dealt enough with the mad king and knew that his envoys had a craving for delectable foods – and knew that the great Lady Burnorrest, though not typical of a lady of her stature, loved to mingle in the kitchen with the kitchen maids and cook amazing dishes.  Lord Burnorrest offered the envoy a warm house and plenty of mead in the days needed to prepare their son for the journey – to which the envoy accepted.  Lady Burnorrest quickly went to work preparing the finest dishes to stuff the man til he could no longer walk.  He ate and ate and ate and when he thought he could eat no more, he was offered more amazing dishes from all over the western kingdoms and beyond.  After the third day of their feast, the envoy began to feel guilt for demanding their son to the service of the Targaryans.   It was the envoys idea, with a full stomach, to send the family away to keep them together.  He told Lord Burnorrest not to tell him where they would be going, but told them to leave, else their son would be taken from them.   Lady Burnorrest wasn’t sure what to say other than she wasn’t sure he could be trusted – would they be tried for treason?  Would they be hunted and killed?  The envoy looked at her and took her hands in his and told her that never in his life had he been filled with so much love around a table and that it would be his privilege to help them do what is needed to keep that love alive.   We kinda teared up a bit, that’s sad, yo.  Apparently, the Burnorrest family left Westeros with the help of the Starks and opened up a restaurant in Volantis.   Apparently, they’re known for their famous honeyed dormice and Pentoshi stuffed dates.  They say the envoy left the service of the crown soon after and died a very fat and happy man in Essos.  The septa took our hands and asked us to carry on the good words of this house and their traditions – so here we are!  LETS EAT!


Then we’ll all eat all the wonderful food.   THE END.  :D

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

S3PP: House Sigils for Guest Houses

S3PP - Season 3 Premiere Party
House Sigils


This idea has taken several stages of evolution to get right and I think the final product (When I finally get off my bouncy butt and finish it...) will be pretty dang cool.

Supplies needed to complete this task:

Rough canvas or other cloth
an Iron
wooden plank - sanded and stained to fit the size of the sigil
textured nails
chain to hang them
more screw hooks! (Yay, I love me some blister!  :(  )
Iron on transfer paper:  I found that Lesley Riley's TAP Transfer Artist Paper from Amazon works the best.  I tried some other transfer sheets and it just didn't have the look I was going for - Let me explain:




The picture on the left is the one using transfer paper from Michaels.  It's your typical transfer paper for dark colored fabrics and it has a very... plasticy feel.  Don't get me wrong, those sigils turned out ok but it felt very fake to me.  The one on the right has more texture - sure the transfers aren't perfect but I don’t want them to be for this project.  The TAP sheets allow for the color of the fabric to show through your design as well, which I found that the other ones didn't really allow for that.  Not only that, but these transfer sheets will work for all kinds of mediums.  Later on, I will tell you how it went when I tried to apply it to a piece of wood for the sky-cell keys.

Ok, back to this project... 

I made 6 sigils all together for this project, each sigil made specifically for the people who will own it.  It took me a while to nail down a design for each house but we went with the theme of "Mythical Creatures" for all of them.  One of them is kinda a stretch but we'll get to that in a minute.

I started with our house - we have a blended family so even coming up with the house name for this one was an adventure.  We decided to go with the Chupacrabra as our sigil because they're beasty eaters - totally fits us.  "We Shall Not Starve" being our words and if any of my buddies are reading this, you know me, and know that it's impossible for me to cook something simple much less avoid cooking for an entire starving country.  We always have leftovers and most of the time, our buddies benefit from my over-exuberance in the kitchen. 


Being that the boyfriend runs a Gamestop, we're all avid gamers, and this stretches to all of our friends as well.  For our buddies Lee, we chose the mythical Jackalope as their sigil - as the Jackalope is clever, and cunning, and easily lured by whiskey.  Their words "With Our Thumbs, We Thrive" because they wield the x-box controller as I wield my spatula. 


For our buddies Brown, we chose the beautiful Loch Ness Monster on a blue backdrop with the words "For Pen, For Glory."   These guys are animators and are ridiculously good at their craft.  Plus one of them is from Scotland so... there ya go.  I wouldn't imagine that the Loch Ness would have such a dirty mind but they do!  And we love them for it.

Next, we have the Jewell Sisters - we actually may only have 1 Jewell sister but I digress.  This particular Jewell sister though is hilarious and LOVES Portal.  Now, only in our messed up minds do the worlds of Game of Thrones and Portal come together - and just in case you were wondering what in the world that would look like, well, it would look a little something like this:




 That one was fun to make... and yeah, quite a bit of a stretch from a mythical creature...


House Corson will also be joining us and yes, you guessed it, someone is a HUGE Giants fan so, of course, we chose the giant as their sigil with the words "Together We Are Giant."  Not really stretching my creativity much here but they're really going to love it.  Especially since Baseball season is upon us, we may just be seeing their sigil as a sign of good luck.  Like a rabbits foot or something, right?   Go A's!  :D



Finally, the house we are all sworn too and my boyfriends family sigil - House Forrest.  For them, we chose the Ent and the darker green with the words "Deep Are Our Roots."  Yes, they are.  This particular sigil held a lot of significance to me because their family just oozes in all kinds of awesome.  Their sigil though was a bit tough to find - there are all kinds of Ents out there but not many of them have clean lines - not so much shadowing and a LOT of details which is not what you're looking for when you're creating these.  You want long bold clean lines, black and white, not a lot of detail otherwise it will be tough to see the image after you've transferred it.  For their sigil, I am doing something a little different - instead of making a sigil on a chain, I am ironing this on to a special piece of fabric so that mom can sew it into a quilt if she wants to.  She's an avid quilter and a square to honor the family might be just the thing for her.  That, or I can iron it onto a pair of shoes for her but that might be a lot easier said then done... 

This took a lot of digging around on the internet for images and quite a bit of Photoshop wizarding to get just right.  I used a combination of programs to create the sigils including Photoshop, I also used Microsoft Word to do my formatting.  Sure, I coulda done it all in Photoshop but I like things to be extra complicated, as you can probably already tell.

Once I had every sigil formatted in Word, I saved it as a PDF and opened it again in Photoshop to add the color.  I chose a very large textured brush and put whatever color I was using on almost completely transparent - allowing me to paint over the top of the sigil without losing the sigil.  To create this particular effect you see here, I did not paint as I normally would, rather "dabbed" the paint - that is to say I did more pointing and clicking rather than dragging the color across the screen.  After a plethora of curse words and hours of tinkering, I managed to get them how I wanted them.

At first I was going to embroider them with some snazzy accents... but then reality hit me and I decided that would take WAY too long.  Then I thought I could sew them to a small dowel rod and hang them with some rope... but again, that would take way too long since I don't have a sewing machine and would be doing it all by hand.  In the end, I decided that nailing them to a piece of stained wood would be the best way to go.  I can texture the wood so it looks weathered and stain the fabric for an aged look.   There’s a lot of fun things you can do with the graphic once you have it laid out how you want - it will also make the perfect accent for a fantabulous kitchen wench costume!

With any luck I will have a finished product for you to see a little later on. 

Just a little over 2 weeks to go!!!



















Thursday, March 7, 2013

S3PP: The Glorious Wooden Curtain of Houses - Please god, don't let myhouse burn down...

S3PP - Season 3 Premiere Party
The Curtain of Houses

This project was born from a snippet of something I watched on the DIY network... In typical DIY fashion, some hunky guy was working on a project and showing us, the viewer how to do it... I don't remember much about this episode - except for the hunky guy but I digress.

He had taken a bunch of blocks of wood and made a wooden curtain out of them.  He then attached it to a rod and hung it outside of the bathtub as a divider of sorts.  The blocks had been painted with all kinds of nifty artwork... flowers and plants and leaves... girly crap.  I don’t remember how long ago this episode aired but it must have at least been a couple of years ago.  One dastardly day in November, it all came back to me.. and my Game of Thrones Curtain of Houses was born.

This kind of thing will work with a variety of mediums.  You can paint stuff on the blocks, adhere images (Which is what I did...), stain them all different colors, glue charms on them... whatever floats your boat.  The first thing I needed was a picture of every house sigil I could find... this is where the internet comes in very handy.  Most images are floating all over the internet and are pretty high quality so when you reprint them they look pretty all right.  Plus since I printed them on the smallish side, I didn't need to worry too much about that horrible bloated jpg look.
All in all, I ended up with 53 images, all of the same size.  I copied them into a word document and sized them all so that 8 of them fit onto 1 sheet of cardstock paper.  I chose the thicker paper in hopes that the image would come through more clearly although I'm sure regular paper would work just fine.  After printing them and cutting them out, I ended up with 53 2X3 inch graphics.  To add a little more umph I found another graphic which I printed bigger, about 5X5... "Winter is coming."  Oh yeah it is!!

Now I had 54 pieces of paper and nothing to do with them.  They ended up camping out in an envelope for a while while I got the boards ready... Hope you don't mind a little elbow grease because this is where is gets a little tricky.

I visited my local home improvement store and purchased a huuuugggeeeee long board - 3.5 inches in width (I think... around there...) about 3/4 inches thick and about 8 feet long.  I had the guys cut it down into 3 smaller pieces but not so big that they're sticking out of the back of my truck like a bunch of jerks while I'm driving down the road.  While there, I also grabbed 2 1.5 in dowel rods and about 3 boxes of screw hooks in the smallest size I could find.  By my math, and lets face it my math sucks, I needed 277 screw hooks to complete this project.  I also picked up some poly-crylic in a medium sized can and you'll need some wood stain if you don't have some already.  More about that below...

I'm a lucky girl, I'll tell you that.  I have a miter saw (I think it's called a miter saw... I have a strage obsession with power tools but can't ever keep the names straight...) and with said "whatever" saw, I cut the boards down to 3X3.5 inch blocks.   Oh, and plus one larger block, a smidgeon over 5X5.  Now since I am lacking in anything resembling a work table at my house, I piled all of my cut boards on a 3X4 foot piece of plywood and created a make-shift table on my ottoman.  Hazzah for creativity!

Elbow grease: The art of making grease from your elbows by moving them in a repetitive motion vigorously...

I must have spent HOURS sanding these blocks down.  Now, you don’t have to sand them, but I did just to finish the edges a little better.  I sanded every edge and corner on these things to make them nice and smooth and soft - plus its a great buffer while you're trying to stomach the football on TV since you're watching a team that you don't give a hoot about... An added plus - your hands are covered in tiny grains of wood so you can't really dive into those nachos.

Ok, so they were FINALLY sanded down.  Next, they need to be stained.  I did this in waves since there was so many of them and again, since I don't have anything that resembles a workspace, my kitchen table had to make the sacrifice for me.  Strange that I don’t have a work area though now that I think about it... I make Christmas ornaments every year out of wood, you'd think I'd have something put together by now!  I'm going to save that little nugget of information for later... Anniversary present?  Hmm..

I spread a huge piece of cardboard on my table in layers to make sure that nothing would damage the old thing.  It's old and rickety but it's functional and I like it.  Besides I think I would like it a lot less with huge smears of dark stain all over it.  Because I make ornaments every year I already have an assortment of wood stains but if you need to get some for this project, just get the little cans.  One little can of stain should be plenty for this project.  I also steered clear of the stains that had added varnish.  You don’t need it for this project and without it, your blocks will dry much much faster.   I used a few different colors of stain to give it more variety but they were all dark-ish colors with some slight variations so none really stand out more than another.  I also took this opportunity to stain the wooden dowels that I bought as well. 

Ok, remember those awesome house sigils we printed up?  Now that the blocks are dry, we will need to make them wet again.  This next step will require that polycrylic you grabbed at the store - I use this stuff for everything.  It finishes your ornaments really well and works as a make-shift adhesive too!  Grab yourself a very soft brush - anything too course will peel the image right off your paper and ruin your day.  Working very carefully, one block at a time, put a thick layer of polycrylic over the block and place your sigil in the middle.  It’s important that you cover the front of the block as completely as you can so that the sigil has plenty to grab on to.  Once your sigil is placed, very carefully paint another coat of polycrylic over the top.  Don't apply too much pressure of your sigil will lose some ink.  This is the voice of experience talking to you...

Now that all of your sigils are placed and dry, your blocks are ready for those emmer effing screw eyes... 277 blisterful pain in the fingers screw eyes that will cramp your fingers and make you cuss.  Oh yes, this is the price we pay for fantastic!  You've been warned!

Every block that I created had 4 screw eyes plus the big block.  I placed my screw eyes in a cross like pattern, one at the top center and bottom center, and one on each side approximately 1 inch from the corner.  Over and over and over.... Yes, the blisters came and I cussed a lot but this project is totally worth it.  As of this very moment that I am writing this, no one has anything like this in their house.  And if you succeed on this adventure, you'll join me in the awesome club.

I waited to do the big block until I was almost done connecting the rest of them so that I could measure it out correctly.  Now the fun part - placement and connection!  I divided the sigils into 2 piles with the most popular houses (Stark, Lannister, Greyjoy, etc..) in center closest to where my big block would be.  I didn't really place the rest according to popularity, just tried mostly to avoid to similar sigils too close to each other. I used a pair of pliers to very carefully open the screw eyes and hook them into each other.  Each row was done separately and then hooked together.  My curtain has 3 rows.  Once one side was done, I connected it to one of the dowels with more screw eyes, leaving enough space at the top for one half of my big block. 

When I was done with that joyous task and my fingers were bleeding and I was basking in a pit of self loathing and despair, I measured out where I needed to place the hooks in my big block that would connect both parts of my curtain.  4 hooks to go, you can do this!

Once it was done, I walked away from it and the angels started singing and I swear I saw George R.R. Martin in the clouds smiling at me... I done good.  Oh yes.  But, sadly, I didn't stop there...

So my thought was that this would be hanging up for all to see during GoT season, right but most people don't want it hanging up all the time so what do we do when it's not Game of Thrones season?

I raided my computer for family pictures, that's what!  I grabbed a few of my favorites and left the majority of the blocks blank so I could add more as we shared more momentous occasions... first days of school, weddings, birthdays, etc.  I applied them in the same way that I applied the sigils and I gotta say, it looks pretty awesome. 

We hung it up, Game of Thrones side and stood back... the thing looks freaking amazing.  So we ordered a huge map of Westeros and hung that underneath... guess we won't ever be seeing the family side because we've kinda turned our living room into a "Thrones" room... awesome..

So that's how I made the Curtain of Houses.  Hope yours turns out awesome too!  If not, you can just oogle over the picture of mine... which will be a lot less funny when I actually get it up.

Enjoy!