diy roman shades

I've always been a fan of roman shades, and I've even made one previously, but I was looking for a different way. Something simpler.

I jumped on Pinterest and did a little research and came across this blog post. I've tried fabric shades, and roman shades, but so far - this is my favorite method. If you want to check out the fabric shades post, you can see it here.

I ordered this cool fabric from www.fabric.com for the front fabric and got 2 yards per window. The cost per yard was $10.00. As it turned out, I had about the same amount of fabric in a white fleece already in my fabric pantry. With the cold winter months upon us, having a fleece lining would help insulate the windows.

I measured out the width of the windows and purchased some really cheap blinds. I paid $2.99 per blind and the hubby hung them for me.

I measured the same width of the blinds for the fabric plus 2 inches. The back fabric I measured the width of the windows minus 1.5 inches. Right sides together, I sewed them - just the right and left sides. I left the top and bottom open.

I ran my serger down both sides.

Then I turned them inside out and ran the serger over the top and bottom edges. 

I laid it out on the kitchen table and put the blinds on top.

I started cutting out the cord that keeps all the blinds together and removed it completely. Make sure you keep the cord that run through the blind slats untouched - this is what makes it move up and down.

There were 3 sections of string.

What was left was the string for pulling up the blinds. Then I started taking out most of the blinds, except for roughly 15.

A tip was to have the cord pull pointing towards you so it doesn't look bumpy under the fabric. You'll just pull the blinds up or down from behind the fabric.

I used up my fabric glue, but the Tacky glue worked just as well.

I really thought about gluing the blinds down onto the fabric. What if I wanted to wash them? How would I do that? Honestly, I can't remember a time where I've taken the fabric shades or other roman shades for washing. When the day comes, I may just take my steamer to them.

I measured about 4 inches per blind slot, then I glued the top and bottom over the shades. The glue attached itself to the fleece very nicely and I didn't even have to weight parts down.

After about an hour or two of drying, I hung them up.

I really like them!

The were very easy to put together, and they slide up and down nicely. I spent roughly $16.00 per window in materials and it took me about 6 hours to make 4 of them.

I love them and I think .... I may start on the bedroom.