My Least Favorite Project Ever- A Curtain Call

I blame Pinterest for this one.


I saw these awe.some curtains on Pinterest back in the summer or fall, not sure when, but loved them when I saw them.



Aren't these abso gorgeous?? I love the mix of reds and black/white. And the best part about these curtains? Absolutely no sewing involved. So I thought, I could do this. I could so do this and not even break a sweat.

Chuckle, chuckle.....

If you want the professional tutorial , go here. This blogger, by the way, is a designer by trade so of course hers look perfect and she made it sound so easy. So I first would like to blame her for me taking on this project because had she kept it real, I would have never started this in the first place. :)

Unless, its just me that had a problem with this menial design project and that's why it seemed so simple. Because in all reality, it probably isn't something too hard for someone who spent two years at design school. But for a stay at home mom of two with an associate degree in science/ early childhood ed? Yeah, lets just say I would take Statistics all over again than go back and re-create this curtain project.

In all honesty, I needed window treatments in my living room anyway since my old Target un-lined curtains were ruined from years of sun beating down on them so this was a project of necessity not just one to create something new for the blog. But, and big but here, I also wanted to step outside my comfort zone a little too by creating something other than a cute accent piece for the kids room or a sign for the kitchen. This was an actual big girl project that was gonna take more blood, sweat, tears and moola than I usually am comfortable using. 

Last Saturday, my bestie Christine and I got out of the house sans children thanks to her hubs Keith. Forever indebted to this man and my hubs collectively for letting us get out alone here and there.

 God. Bless. Supportive. Husbands. 

We got out under the ruse of a preschool fair...which we did go to.....but ended up going to lunch, Target and Pier One too.....because I hear that Pier One has an excellent program for four year olds this fall....
 Any hoo.....whilst at Target, I found these curtains:

A package of panel curtains in just the right color for only $17.48 on clearance of which I bought two, one for each side of the window. I should state that I was already waaay ahead of the game financially compared to the blogger who created the inspiration curtains because hers were from Restoration Hardware....or Constipation Hardware which is what you will have if you buy anything in that store that is larger than a vase. The curtains, I can only ascertain, were probably more than my car payment last month.

So already, I was savin' money!! Right? Right??????

Then, according to the blogger's instructions, I needed the following:

Black twill fabric.

The blogger never stated how much you need.

I will help you out.

You will need 4 yards for two panels.

                                                   Anything more and you can do the math.

You will also need:

Heat bond aka fusible fabric webbing aka body odor glue.

It smelled like bo. I swear on my life.

You will definitely need at least 3 packages but I would get 4 if I had to do it over.

They only had 3 at the craft store and I was spending no more money on this project...more on that later.

Then lastly, you will need this:

Black grosgrain ribbon.

You will need 17 yards of this at least.

                                     Who knew that this would be most of the cost of my project.

I didn't but now you know.

So here is the tutorial:

Measure out your black twill fabric.

I wanted to make my blocks 14 inches wide (like the blogger did), then I measured out the width of my Target curtains and used chalk (as it erases easily off twill) to mark off where I had to cut.

 I then used a ruler to try and get the cut as even as possible.

Cut out with your scissors.

You will cut four black twill blocks per panel.

My panels were 95 inches long so I only needed four 14 inch blocks but if you had shorter curtains, you would want either the same amount but smaller in width.

I laid the panel on my (clean) floor and then placed the blocks onto the panels to see where I wanted them.

I used a tape measure to try to keep the blocks as even as possible.

Then started the ironing.

Lets just say that this is the most ironing I have done in months, years, my entire life.

If you do not like to iron.

Click on the little X on the top right of your page.

This is not the project for you.

If I had known that to begin with, I would have just gone to the bank, taken out a loan and went to Pottery Barn to buy curtains.

Here I am at the beginning of the project ironing the bonding onto the fabric.

                                                        Aww, look how happy I am!!.

naive little woman......

So here is my unprofessional tutorial on how to work with Heat Bond:

Oh and some other helpful tips before getting into the thick of things:

and

I hope I am not coming off too snarky at this point.

I am?

Sorry.

Onwards....

So you want to use the heat bond to attach the black twill to the curtains. I lined them up on the curtains ahead of time so I knew how much I had to work with:

So it took a little longer than expected, my project did....here I am working into the night on it:

Yes I am aware my sweater is inside out.

It was that kind of night around here.

And not the good kind of mysweaterisinsideout kind of night, if ya get my drift.....

Then you need to glue on the grosgrain ribbon over the rough edges and yes, there will be rough edges.

I finished one panel in three hours.

Which for someone who may or may not be impatient and likes instant gratification, is a lifetime.

Here is what the one panel looked like when the hubs helped me hang it up the next morning:

Looks pretty good except that I had to break out the glue gun.

Yes, the glue gun.

To seal up some of the fabric that wouldn't hold with the heat bond.

That seemed to help.

In stark comparison, here was me mid day in day two of the curtain project.

I even brought in some reinforcements:

I love my hubs so damn much.

He gets me.

And he is mighty fine with a glue gun.

Here is the finished product...please humor me and oooh/aaahhh lavishly.

I have to say, I do love them.

A lot.

Like, I wanna sit all night and stare at them, love them.

We are eating dinner tonight in the dining room that faces these curtains.

And every night after.

Now here is the last part of this post that I am a little embarassed to talk about.

I spent some coin on this project.

Yes, me the ultimate cheapskate who gets giddy when she saves 60 cents on a can of tomato paste, spent some money to create this look.

I had a little convo with bestie Rebecca about this project while in the middle of it and she did talk me off the ledge a little by explaining that the cost of the inspiration blog's plain curtains before the project even started cost her more than my entire project.

Thanks Rebecca. :)

So here is the cost breakdown:

- off white curtains: 17.48 each x 2 = 34.96

- black twill fabric: 4 yards x 4.19/yard = 16.76

- ribbon: 17 yards x 1.49/yard = 25.33 (for ribbon????????????)

- heatbond: 2.99 x 3 packages = 8.97

for a grand total of....

shudder....

$86.02

Yep.

86 bucks for my curtains.

Just so ya know, thats:

3 mani's

or

2 pedi's

or

1.5 pedi's and 1.5 mani's together

or

1.5 hours of massage

or

8 lunches at Panera Bread

or

28 packages of 100 calorie packs

or

                                        86 items at Dollar Tree

or

22 issues of  People magazine

or

67 songs on Itunes

or

17 margarita's on five dollar 'rita night

or

       one pillow at Pottery Barn.....

Any hoo, I am glad I tried this. I love how it turned out. And if we ever move, they are comin' with me.