Roll Your Own
I hate those bland, beige roller shades — you know, the cheap ones you can have cut at any hardware store. Here’s my no-sew way to create custom window treatments using those off-the-shelf shades.
Ingredients:
- Roller shade, cut to measure for your window
- Fabric of your choice — it should be light weight
- Double-sided iron-on interfacing
Tools:
- Scissors
- Steam iron
- 2 rag towels, one over your ironing board to protect it, the other dampened to be a pressing cloth
Make it:
- Unroll your shade, remove it from the roller tube, and measure it.
- Transfer the measurement to your fabric — but make the width a bit wider.
- Place the dampened towel over the fabric, and following the instructions from the interfacing manufacturer, iron on the interfacing on the backside of the fabric. It is important to leave the wax paper (or whatever the backing is) on the interfacing, or else it will stick to your ironing board and iron.
- Now remove the backing from the interfacing, and place the fabric over the vinyl shade so that the interfacing makes contact with the vinyl.
- Place the dampened towel over the fabric, and following the instructions from the interfacing packaging, iron it onto the vinyl.
- Trim the excess fabric so it fits the vinyl shade perfectly (because of the interfacing, it will not ravel), reattach it to the roller, and hang your custom window covering.
