DIY Curtains | No Sew | Home Decor

Hello I'm Jennifer and in this video I'm going to show you how you can make a beautiful relaxed roman shade. No sewing required. So I am in my design center in my store which is a great place to work because this table is nice and big. I'm going to be making this relaxed roman shade for my daughter-in-law Kaylin. She has a really cute little nook in her master bedroom where she's got her desk set up. It's got a window above it and it just needs a little bit of softness. So I'm going to be giving you a couple of tips during this video to help make this process easy. The first tip is all about figuring out how big you want to make your curtain and what I like to do is I like to draw a window on a piece of paper and that helps me not get confused with what's the width I want to have and how far down. Now in Kaylin's window we didn't want to cover too much light so we're going to go about 16 inches down and the reason I'm saying about is because when you have a relaxed roman you've gathered fabric up. Sometimes if your curtain is a little bit bigger when you gather the fabric it's going to have a lot more hanging down. So we're going to do about 16 down and her window width is 38. What you need to determine first is you can take your roman shade and you can mount it inside your window or you can do an outside mount. Now if you do an inside mount I typically take that curtain and we're going to use boards and I'll staple the curtain on about a 1x2 and that way you put that board straight up into your window and you add a screw here and a screw there and it's mounted. But I'm going to do an outside mount for Kaylin's window and that's just a little bit different. So when you have a board that is I use a 1x3 and the reason I use a 1x3 is because in case there's a little bit of trim above the window that allows your curtain to sit up and out your window a little bit. Now the trick is when it's an outside curtain mount I want to bring the curtain around this side of the board on both sides so that when you look at from the side it looks really pretty. Okay now we're ready to figure out our cutting pattern. You're going to make a hem on only three sides of your curtain because on the top we don't have to have that hem because that's going to be stapled on top of the board. So we're going to do a three inch hem on the bottom and the two sides. So how do we figure out our pattern? So let's start with this one first. So we know Kaylin's window is 38 inches wide so I need to add six inches to that because there's going to be a three inch hem on this side and a three inch hem on that side. Next we want to add the width of the board because we're going to take that curtain and go around the side of the board. Remember so it looks pretty on the sides? It's a funny thing a one by three board actually measures about two and a half so I've got two sides and that's how I came up with the number five. So I take 38 plus six for my hems five for the width of the board is 49 so I want to cut 49 across. So for a relaxed Roman I like to gather up my fabric five times and I like to keep six inches between each gather and that makes a very very pretty swag. Now we're ready to determine how long we need to cut our drapery fabric. I know we want to come about 16 inches for our finished length so we don't hide too much light from the window and remember when you're making a relaxed Roman you gather it up well you're going to have I like to take that number 16 I'm going to cut it in half and I'm going to add 30 inches to that because remember we're gathering up the fabric six inches apart five times and six times five is 30. I'm going to add the three inches for my hem at the bottom and I add all those numbers together and I come up with 41. So I know I want to cut my fabric 49 inches wide and 41 inches down. So when you purchase drapery fabric it's 54 inches straight off the bolt. Look at this fabric that Kaylin chose. It is a beautiful embroidered fabric. I love it. You are also going to need some drapery lining but you can make this curtain with just a little over a yard of fabric and that makes this a super budget-friendly project. Here's another tip after you've cut out your drapery fabric. Take the top of it on the back side and write a little letter T and put a circle around it and that way you won't get cattywomped on what's the top and what's the bottom and end up making a really big mistake. All right to determine your lining pattern it's super easy. So we know we were cutting our drapery fabric at 49 across and 41 down. All you have to do is minus the hem allowance that you have on each side. So 49 inches we have three inch hem on one side three on the other so we're going to subtract six from the number 49. We've got 43. We only have one hem going down so we're going to take 41 minus three and that gives us 38. So to make the hem it's super easy. You'll need a ruler. You're going to take and we're only hemming on three sides. You're going to take your fabric and you're going to fold it up three inches and using your ruler take your iron and press it and after you've pressed it you've gone all the way down what you do is you fold it back up and see you've made a line. So you'll take your fabric and meet that line and fold it over one more time and look what a beautiful hem you've made and then just press that. So another tip when you're doing your hems do your hems on the side first that way you just fold up the bottom and it just looks a lot neater. So when I was a little girl my mother taught me how to sew. She required us to make a garment every summer which I hated and when I grew up I said I'm never sewing again but after I got married and we didn't have a lot of money I decided well I'm gonna make my drapes. Well then I had a friend ask if I could make her some and before you knew it I had a drapery business and I tell you for those of you out there who are looking to earn some extra money or maybe you're a mama who'd like to stay home with your kids learn to sew because the only overhead you have is your sewing machine and I did really really well making draperies. Okay I have got all three hems ironed and ready to go so now it's time for me to take my lining and I'm gonna tuck it up under that first fold get it all tucked in all the way around and then it will be time to add the stitch wedge. So after you've ironed it let it cool for just a minute and then check it out look at that stuck together I like that too. So on the corners where you folded up from the bottom it's a little thick and I did use stitch wedge all the way across but I'm going to take my glue gun and add a little bit of glue to secure it. I've got everything finished and in place so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to mark with a pencil the dots on the side where I'm going to gather up the curtain and remember I'm going to do five dots I'm going to do them six inches apart. And by the way you guys have asked about my glue gun before if you do a lot of projects with hot glue get a hot glue gun that has its own stand. Brilliant I'll put a link to the one I use in the description. Now we're going to gather up in an accordion fashion like this and glue each piece try to keep it as neat on the edges as you can. Okay you don't have to do this but I cover my board with the extra lining that I have and you really just wrap it like you do a present staple it with your staple gun boldly ends up super easy. The next thing you want to do is you want to measure and get the middle of your board and so my board's 38. Good deal they cut it right and so half of that's going to be 19 and I've already made my mark then you're going to take your curtain measure it okay 43 so half of that's going to be 21 and a half and make a mark there. After you have your board covered you're going to attach your curtain with your staple gun and you want to attach it um ugly side up with all the staples so that it looks nicer on the bottom. So I'm going to match up my center point of my curtain and I'm going to fold it over just a teeny bit all the way across the board so that the top is pretty as well and add a staple. Now you want to staple just about a third of the way down because I'm going to show you how we're going to cover the sides. So here's how you're going to do the ends it's pretty much like wrapping a present but you're going to do come up about the same amount that you came on the board pull up on it pop a staple in and then you just kind of fold that over very neatly let's go a little bit higher and match where you were before and then just add a staple. To mount your roman shade it's super easy these are called L-shaped brackets you can find them online or you can find them in the hardware store in the bracket aisle and what you're going to do is see that the L-shaped bracket goes into your board and two screws go into your wall. It's much easier to mount the bracket first then put your curtain on and drill the two screws in. Pretty furniture, pretty lamps, a desk and a chair, a decorated house. So I'll tell you guys another trick I had these ready-made panels at the front of my foyer they were white linen needed just a little bit of something so what I did was I added some decorative tape I've got a video I'll show you how I did that they now look custom and gorgeous. You guys be sure to subscribe to my channel hit that bell it'll tell you when I have a new video out come follow me on Instagram stay safe and stay well.