DIY Roman shades!

This fabric started as homemade curtains in the living room, but they ended up being too busy for that small space. I reverted back to some basic curtains for that room, and cut this fabric up and turned them into roman shades. So simple! The bedroom was an issue-- it had these long curtains over the short windows and I never could get it looking right. I wanted nice, white cell blinds or roman shades, but a blinds.com quote was for over $250 for simple Roman shades for all 3 windows, and I didn't feel like spending that.

So I made these from the old curtains--which were a good deal in the first place, like $6 a yard! I cut them to the window size with a little extra on each side, about 5 inches longer in length. Then I made five small folds and ironed them in-- big enough to place wooden dowels in the back of the shade so they won't sag. The folds were about 5/8". Once those were sewn in place, I sewed by hand these little plastic rings I found at Lowes on the back of each fold--two per fold. These are to secure the opening device. I strung rope through them from the bottom up, and tied a knot at the bottom. At the top I strung the rope through screws with eyelets attached to a 1x2 wooden beam secured to the trim of the window. That allows me to move the shade up and down by pulling the rope. So easy.

I ended up not needing a securing device or a fancy opening device-- the combo of the heavy-ish fabric and the light plastic rings, and the rope actually makes it stay in place while up. Then I just gently pull at the bottom to bring them down. All in all, besides the fabric which I already had, these cost me $20! Yay!  I think they look so much better than my curtains, and better than the nasty, dirty blinds the previous owner had up.