Weekend Project: Fabric Shades from Mini Blinds

Since I saw an online tutorial for fabric shades from mini blinds several months ago, I've been wanting to make them for our kitchen. However, I'd been putting it off because I couldn't decide what fabric to use and I was afraid of ruining the blinds and having no window covering at all! Finally, I just picked a tablecloth from TJMaxx and used it as the fabric (only $20!) and Levi assured me that mini blinds are cheap enough to replace if I screwed them up.

As always it seems, I forgot the before picture. So just imagine there are cheap mini blinds hanging there in place of the new shade - very plain and boring!

DURING

AFTER

I'm really happy with how it turned out! I'm still not sure the fabric is my favorite, but I like it well enough and I've told myself that I can always change the fabric later using the same blinds skeleton (but I know I probably won't!). I might also add a backing fabric (some white muslin or something like that). Also, I still have one other window in the kitchen to make a matching shade for, but it's considerably smaller and the process should go faster now that I've done it once.

If you want to know how I did it, I used this online tutorial. My only advice would be to hang up your shade skeleton before you add the fabric to make sure it's the right length - and be sure the cord is all the way extended first! I had to adjust mine a couple of times, so I was glad I checked before I got to the fabric stage. Also, if you're curious to know, I spaced my blinds 7.3333 inches apart instead of the 9 inches suggested in the tutorial. You can do them however far apart you want. Now go make your own!