Seeing Stripes: DIY Curtains

I always think the clothes we choose to rock affect the way we decorate our home. A lot of us take more time in picking out clothes that represent the true us then in decorating our home which are not on display everytime we leave the house.

When working with a new client I always pay attention to the way they present themselves. Are they in all black, wearing accessories, etc? It helps paint of picture of what their effortless style is, which is what I want to do for them in their personal space.

More than once I’ve been inspired by a fashion pic and during one of my latest projects a clothing picture saved the day.

When I first painted this room it was in the height of the blue and chocolate brown craze.

Only problem was the room was placed on the back burner when other projects took precedence and it never fully come together. With all that time placing I had at this point grown tired of blue and brown.

So instead of starting from scratch I removed all the brown in the room and went with a new color combo.

 

As always Kate Spade comes to the rescue! That yellow and white striped skirt was always one of my favorites and until recently I hadn’t realized that the top featured was the same blue as my walls.

I then decided that horizontal yellow stripe fabric was the solution to my problem. When I saw that Jenny was doing something similar I knew I was on the right track.

I couldn’t find the exact fabric that I wanted so I decided to go with a DIY solution.

Enter IKEA with my basic white  curtains:

Plus Tulip Fabric Spray Paint, Frog Tape, tape measure, construction paper:

Now for the how to. I decided that I wanted 7” stripes so we (and by we I totally mean Jon) started taping off the fabric.

As you continue to make the stripes you will notice that spaces don’t look equal. This is because the painted sections are 7” on the inside of the tape, but the section that will remain unpainted is also 7”, but from the outside of the 1” tape.

 

We tried a bunch of techniques on the first panel to make sure we had no overspray, but for the second panel this technique worked best.

We cut construction paper to size and then taped it over the white section. No chance of overspray here!

Next step is spraying!

It’s important to have a light hand when you spray. Keep the bottle moving as  you spray so that you get a yellow mist coming out. Make sure you let  the stripe set for around 5 mins and then remove the paper:

Immediately after you remove the paper move on to removing the frog tape. Be careful when doing this because there will be yellow overspray on the frog tape, which you don’t want to get on the white section:

Voila! Finished Product:

 

Hanging them was rather simple. I didn’t like the pull tab look, but it was the cheapest option at IKEA. Instead of cutting the tab off or using the sewing machine I used clips instead.

They still need to be hemmed, but I couldn’t wait much longer. So up they went so I could snap some pictures!

 

Close up:

Due to the fabric paint the curtain was a bit stiff, but since we had done the first panel weeks earlier it was already soft. So the stiffness does disappear. After 3 days of setting the fabric can be washed!

Hope you all enjoyed the steps and try it out yourselves! I can’t wait to try it out again. 

Now I’m off to finalize the room. It needs artwork to go up along with the flat screen that Jon is trying to get in every single room of the house. Oh boys and their toys.