DIY No Sew Shade (aka the forgotten project)

 I came across a great tutorial (there's actually several great tutorials) on pinterest on how to make a no sew roman shade using and old mini blind and I knew that it was exactly what I needed for our little window in the laundry area.  I will share that project in a moment but I feel as though this project needs a back story.

Here's our laundry area long ago when we first moved in and how we turned our dryer into a table for used paint cans.  Functional, yes.  Pretty, no. 

Oh, here's an up close view of the window just in case you needed that.

After some painting and paint can removal we were now at this stage in this room. I actually love the yellow in here, it's so bright and cherry. 

For some reason I never finished painting this window completely and it still has painters tape on the window panes - it's one of those "one day when I have free time I will finish this" projects.  Hmmm, seems I might have a lot of those.

So anyway, like I said earlier - I found a great tutorial by Jenny- (an awesome blogger/designer) on how to make a no sew shade and I was all about that.  *Please refer to her ever so perfect instructions for this project - it's really great.  I gathered my supplies: the old mini blind, my chevron fabric, scissors and fabric glue and I was all ready to go.  Oh, did I mention that this was in January?

I completed my first big task (which honestly is probably the most difficult part of the process) and removed my thin ladder strings from the blind and I was feeling good.  But then, I got distracted.... forgot what I was doing and tossed the mini blind under my bed to never be seen again.  Just kidding, I did see it again, and again and again.  It sat there creeping out from under the bed every so often, just reminding me of the project that never was.

Then, all of a sudden it's September and the old mini blind still sat in waiting and I just couldn't take it any longer.  This project needed finishing.  Of course, after months of being tossed around this blind was a giant disaster and a tangled mess so it took a little while to remember what in the world I was doing and how it needed to look.

But, this story has a happy ending so I worked it out. After I got all of the knots untagled the next thing I needed to do was to remove the thick bottom slat of the blind and then remove any slat I didn't want.  

I ended up with just 4 slats and of course the thick bottom piece (which I put back on after removing the unwanted pieces).  Then it was a matter of measuring my fabric, cutting it and placing my blind on top and spacing out my slats.  No measuring utensils were used during this project.  I eyeballed everything - not sure if I would recommend that.  Oh yes, and Silas through a deck of cards all around the room while I was spacing out my blind - good times.

Then, I just glued the fabric to the blind- top, bottom, sides and middle.  

And finally after months of forgetting, I had this.  Not the most perfect or most beautiful "roman" shade in the world but I like it and it's semi-functional (you may have to remove the whole thing every time you want to adjust the height - this is real life).  Hey, and it was cheap.  Just forget you still see tape in the windows and an unfinished painted window...maybe that should be my next thing I tackle. 

I would say this space is looking better, now on to decide what is next on our long list for back there. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Hope you all enjoyed your weekend!  Can't wait to share about mine, hey guess what - we were on a youth retreat again, this time our Fall Retreat.  It was awesome and I loved every second.  So how about you?  Have any unfinished projects out there just waiting in the wings to be done?  

Drama Anyone?

We are adding some drama in our bedroom today in the form of bold flowing curtains.  At first, we totally were not planning on going with such a bold choice, we really were thinking white all the way.  But then we were wooed by these lovelies at Ikea and our plans changed.  Ikea really has great affordable curtain options that are easily customizable to your desired length, we love the way they turned out and can't wait to hang the rest of our curtains now.  Here's a round up of the process and result.

We first decided where we wanted to hang the curtains and measured appropriately.  We wanted to make the window to appear larger than it is and add height to the room as well so we hung the curtains high and wide over our window.

One of Justin's favorite tools is this laser level.  We actually just recently purchased it and it has been worth every penny (we actually bought the cheapest one we could find).  I know, how could we go nine years without ever owning one of these?  

So, I mentioned above that the curtains we bought were easy to customize.  They come in longer than you need lengths (for the most part) and packaged with fusible tape.  You just measure where you want your hem, and fold your curtain to the appropriate length.  Then you need to iron out your fold first.  This creates a nice crisp fold to follow.

Then simply place your tape along the crease of the fold and iron together.

You will now have a new nice hem with no sewing!  The tape is also washable.  You either need to wash your curtains ahead of time to allow for shrinkage or plan on increasing your length a little for future washing and shrinking.  The last thing I needed to do was cut off the extra fabric and voila!  Perfect length curtains.

Just a reminder of our bedroom before -

And after - we also paired the slate gray drapes with these light and airy curtains to add softness.  We love it.  It is also very difficult to take good pictures at night of dark curtains but I think you can get an idea of how they look.  The color does look a little lighter in person.

Just adding the curtains and hanging them high and wide really make this room appear larger and the ceiling higher.  We love increasing our square footage without having to build a thing.

Giveaway tomorrow!  Check back to enter for a chance to win a lovely handmade item!

Blog Hopping Today: The Thrifty Side