Decor DIY | The Easiest Roman Shades Ever!

I attempted to make roman shades from scratch once (key words = attempted, once). It was several years ago and I enlisted the help of my friend & fabric whisperer, Andrea. In the end the project FAILED (at no fault of Andrea’s), the mechanics were a total pain in the butt to figure out & I was left with a bag full of fabric, a ½ sewn, lined panel & roman shade guts (little plastic rings, dowels & several yards of nylon cord).

Recently, I found that bag while cleaning out my fabric stash and was reminded of how much I love the look of a roman shade. But they are $$$, hence the reason I wanted to make them in the first place.

Thanks to the interwebs, especially Pinterest, I found a much easier option. And…after finding the tutorial, I excitedly remembered:

1. I had a few yards of fabric in a bright print leftover from wedding stuff (Jess wasn’t in love with it then for wedding crafts but was okay with it being in our office window)
2. Our office/studio window had some icky mini blinds in it. They were left by the last tenant & we put up curtains over them & then quickly forgot about them. A note about this: I happen to know that our landlord didn’t supply the mini blinds so they were free game to use for this project. (Yay!)

Fabric (a mid-weight cotton worked for me but the other tutorials I’ve seen use burlap or heavier cotton canvas)

Mini blinds in a size to fit your window (use old ones & upcycle them or buy cheap ones at your nearest home supply store)

Fabric glue (I used “Liquid Stitch”)

Measuring tape

Heat N’ Bond iron-on hem tape

Fabric shears or super sharp scissors

Double sided craft tape

Iron

Optional supplies:
Pinking shears
Binder clips
Quilting ruler
Thread in a matching color (only if you plan to machine stitch your seams)
Hot glue gun (I didn’t use this but many of the tutorials did)

Instructions

I mostly used the instructions here  & referenced an older tutorial for steps I wasn’t sure about.

Here are a few notes/things I did differently:

:: Prepping the blinds: This was much easier than I thought. I can’t emphasize this next tip enough: BE CAREFUL NOT TO CUT THE LIFT CORD. You think it’s super obvious BUT it’s very easy to get into measuring & cutting & gluing & before you know it, you’re wondering why your scissors are having such a hard time cutting the fabric…& then you realize the lift cord was hiding under the fabric & you almost cut it & ruined the whole project. GAH! So….BE CAREFUL NOT TO CUT THE LIFT CORD.

:: Glue: I had all of the supplies required with the exception of the fabric glue. I bought it at a local sewing store & the brand I used was called “Liquid Stitch”. I used it to adhere the fabric to everything – the mini blind slats, the thicker mechanical bar at the top and the thick bottom slat. So far, it’s holding up just fine. I didn’t use hot glue at all.

:: Fabric: I used a medium weight cotton print. It’s the main reason I didn’t use hot glue – because I feel like it would be less forgiving than a heavy weight canvas or burlap & I didn’t want to see lumps & bumps on the finished shade.

:: Seams & “pattern”:

• I left a 2.5” border around all of the edges.  Meaning, I measured & cut my piece of fabric 2.5″ bigger, on all sides, than what I wanted my finished shade to be. For the left and right sides, I folded the fabric in 2.5 ” & pressed it with an iron. I folded the flap of fabric under itself, sandwiched the Heat N’ Bond between the layers of fabric & pressed it, leaving me with a double thick seam that measured 1.25″. I did this to give a little more stability to the shade on the sides.
• I left the top & bottom edges raw so I could play around/easily cut off any excess fabric
• My pleats (where I glued the slats) are spaced 7.5” apart because that seemed to work the best with the length of my window
• I used the recommended Heat N’ Bond (no sewing necessary!) for the hem but also used a sewing machine to reinforce the hem on each side to give it nice finished & clean look

:: Finishing:

• I used binder clips (yes, your standard office supply binder clips) to temporarily hold the fabric in place as the glue was drying on the top mechanical bar & the thick bottom slat. This was a really helpful step.
• Once the glue on the top mechanical bar & bottom slat was dry, I used pinking shears to trim the excess fabric (to keep the raw edge of the fabric from fraying). As you are doing this, BE CAREFUL NOT TO CUT THE LIFT CORD!!!  I was extra careful not to cut or glue the lift cord in all of the earlier steps & then nearly cut one of them during this last finishing step. OMG! Crisis averted though…phew!
• Once the finished shade was in place, I put a little piece of strong double-sided craft tape on both sliding pieces of the bracket that holds the top of the shade in place & pressed the top corners of the fabric down (as the instructions in the tutorials state, you have to keep the corners unglued in order to be able to install the shade).

And….voila!…a sexy looking roman shade for less!

So sexy in fact, we thought the trim & windowsill looked too drab after taking down the original curtains. So…I lightly sanded away any ickies, taped it off with painter’s tape & painted it a nice bright white. Even after painting, this project still took just 2 evenings to complete.

Have you ever had a project unknowingly turn into more projects? Let us know how things turned out.

Happy making!

Tags: blinds, decor, DIY, easy, green, modern, no sew, recycled, repurposed, roman shade, thrifty