DIY Roman Shades

When we painted our kitchen grey earlier this year, I decided to use orange as an accent color. I love how the colors look together, and I think orange is fun for a kitchen. Kate got me an orange tea kettle for my birthday, and we registered for orange kitchen towels for our wedding. Orange curtains were next on the list.

I fell in love with the idea of making my own roman shades after seeing a couple of tutorials on Pinterest. The idea is pretty ingenious, actually. You use pre-made mini blinds as the skeleton and lay them behind the fabric of your choosing.

However, things got to be a bit tedious when I got down to it. This could be because I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, but I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I was making 2 sets of shades to hang right next to each other, so they needed to match (exactly.) Plus, the fabric I chose had a definite pattern, so it would be easy to tell if things were askew. That combined with the fact that the folds had to be spaced perfectly - twice! - made me a bit maniacal.

All in all, I absolutely love how they turned out. I'd say it was definitely worth the stress.

I'm not going to post a tutorial because I really did just follow this one and this one, and they were great. However, I will give you a few tips:

• Think about the weight of the fabric. I suggest something heavy so it hangs nicely. Also, keep in mind how much light shines through the window. Do you want the curtains to block the light or let it filter through? Do you need to add a liner?
• Determine if the pattern of the fabric you choose will be easy to work with. Although my fabric had a definite pattern, I found it pretty difficult to get lined up perfectly. Perhaps something more geometric would have been easier.
• Measure, measure, measure, and measure some more.
• Be sure that whatever you are marking the back of your fabric with doesn't show through when light is shining on it. I learned this the hard way.
• Keep in mind how the shades will attach to the windows when you are gluing fabric to the top bar. Most mini blinds set into brackets that are attached to the inside of your window frame. Then a little piece slides over the opening so they don't fall out. Like this:

Which means you can't glue the fabric all the way across the bar. Instead, I left the ends un-glued and then attached some sticky velcro to the corner of the fabric and the little tab that slides in to keep everything in place. It seemed to work well.

Again, I'm very happy with how these turned out. Give it a try if you're looking for a fun way to bring color or pattern into a room!