"Custom" Store-Bought Curtains - Tutorial Tuesday

You don't always have to spend a fortune to have beautiful window treatments AND you don't always have to start from scratch when you begin new projects for your home.

Case in point, my "Custom" Store-Bought Curtains. I loved the rich cinnamon red color in these two panels but since I found them at my local TJMaxx, there wasn't enough of either pattern for all of my windows. I needed to get creative.

Supplies:

4 Coordinating Purchased Window Panels
Scissors
Sewing Machine

Choose which panels you'd like to use for the center portion. Cut the remaining, coordinating panel in half, lengthwise.

Pin and sew the panel halves to the outside edges of the center panel. Repeat with remaining panels.

Press and hang. No hems or sides to sew...Easy Peasy!



Hmmm, do these curtains look a bit short to any of you? Kinda like the floods you were embarrassed to wear in elementary school...or was that just me...

The Nester inspired me to fix them in an easy, "it doesn't have to perfect" kind of way. So, for part II of this tutorial...

How to Lengthen Your Too Short "Custom" Store Bought Curtains

Supplies:

Hot Glue Gun
Fringe Trim
Your Joann's 40% off coupon



Measure the bottom width of all your too short curtains and head on over to Joann's with that 40% off coupon that is burning a hole in your pocket.

Then hot glue that stuff along the bottom edge.

Ta da!



Click on the the DIY Day button below to check out more great projects for your home:



The linky party is ON for Thursday! Compose your own "Into It" post and link up here. For those who want to get a jump on things, I should be opening up the posting around 10 pm Wednesday night. Grab your button now, and I'll see you Thursday!



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DIY Thursday - Layered Window Treatments

My friends will tell you, I love to mix it up. "The Queen of Random" a friend calls me and I decorate my home the same way. When I first decorated our kitchen, I had french country in mind with lots of rich colors, patterns, and textures.

I saw an article in Better Homes and Gardens with a small photo of a cozy room with this style of layered window treatment (that was waaay overpriced, I'm sure).

So a quick trip to Joann's and Lowe's got me started.

Using a large piece of brown kraft paper, I made a pattern using the width of the door for the width measurement. I, then, determined how far down I wanted the scallops to hang on the door and measured twice as long for the length of the fabric. I folded the paper in half to draw the shape, so it was symmetrical. (as I look at this sketch, I think I must have made the center scallop a bit longer than the sides) This is just one large piece of fabric with scallops cut into the bottom.

I sewed together the fabric and the lining then pressed and stitched the trim to the bottom (this trim could easily be hot glued onto the bottom)



Where you see dotted lines, I sewed from top to bottom with a basting stitch using a thick upholstery thread and leaving a long free end at the bottom.

I pulled the thread to gather the material up to the length I wanted and tied it off.

The big guy then attached a simple 1x2 inch board with "L" brackets to the surface of the door/window. Along the bottom, we screwed in simple cup hooks to hang the bamboo matchstick blinds (from Lowe's)



After the board was mounted, I hung the matchstick blinds on the cup hooks, then stapled the curtain to the board. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!






***What would I do differently next time (you know that's how it always goes)? I would allow for the width of the board when I measured the width of the curtain. So, I would have made the fabric 4 inches longer so it was long enough to reach all the way around the corner of the board I stapled it to.

I've submitted this to Kimba's ASPTL DIY Linky Party. Want to party on down with her? Click the button below and par-tay!



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