Dopey's Happy Home Not Your Mom's DIY

Last week, in what was probably one of my more ambitious DIYs, I made this window treatment: valance, curtain and tiebacks.  And I did it all with scraps and supplies I already had on hand.  A few weeks ago I repainted my home office to the color you see above.  To do this, I had to remove the blinds and ancient curtains that I got from Urban Outfitters about a hundred years ago.  When it came time to hang them back up when the paint was dry I decided that I totally didn’t want to because 1) I hate blinds with a passion (they are so blah looking and get so dirty and utterly impossible to clean. Also? The cats bend them and they break off and the whole thing just looks so tacky), and 2) as much nostalgic love as I have for those curtains, they have seen better days and they are really, really tired.  It was definitely time for something new.  When I started the project I had an image in my head and only a vague idea of how I would get there.  I literally improvised every step of the way and I just couldn’t be more thrilled with how they turned out.  I love them   Wanna know how I did it?

Valance

For the valance frame I used a super cheap curtain rod; the rounded, white kind you get at home depot or the lower racks of target, you know, the $2 ones; two sheets of poster board, and duct tape.

I measured how long I needed the rod to be and taped it in place.  Then I cut the poster board into 8″ strips.

I taped these together long-wise,

and then taped that to the outside of the curtain rod.

To make sure that my valance would hold its shape, I repeated this for the inside of the curtain rod.

I finished the frame with some extra pieces of tape for safe measure.

I wanted the entire thing to be covered in burlap.  Since I was working with scraps, I cut them all into different sized squares

and collaged them to the front part of the frame.

I made sure to let them hang over the edges enough that I could wrap them around for a finished look.  To attach the burlap to the poster board I first used a spray adhesive. Then I whipped up my home-made modgepodge/paper mache concoction of flour and water (use two parts water for every one part flour), and used a paint brush to apply this very liberally all over.  I left this to dry overnight while I worked on the rest of the project.

The big white-ish ruffle down the length of the valance is muslin.  It isn’t one continuous strip as, again, I was working with scraps. I sewed a bunch of scraps together until I had a piece 1.5 times as long as the frame.  I then ran it through the sewing machine on the loosest running stitch my machine (read: the boyfriend’s machine) has.  Then I pulled the strings to create a fairly loose ruffle the exact length of the frame.  The first couple of times I tried to do this the string kept snapping, and I discovered a few things about creating ruffles.  The first lesson is that cleaner fabric ruffles easier.  I just rinsed the fabric in warm water and threw it in the dryer with the rest of my laundry.  I am making a guess here that this is because fabric is sold with some starches and residues on it that a thorough rinsing will remove..  The second lesson I learned, which the boyfriend pointed out to me, was that I was using very cheap and thin thread.  He went into his office and tossed some thicker and stronger polyester thread my way.  After doing these two things (rinsing the fabric and using better thread) my fabric ruffled right up!  I tied off the ends, evened out the ruffle, and hot glued it down the middle of the burlap covered frame.

Next I used some vintage looking lace (I actually had just enough) and hot glued that over the muslin down the entire length.  At this point it looked like this:

The next step was to make a bunch of rosettes from scrap fabric.  I used three different fabrics: muslin, sheer white, and a shiny textured remnant.  The majority of the rosettes I made the super easy way: cut a long strip, knot one end, wrap the fabric around the knot while occasionally giving the fabric a twist, and dabbing on a touch of fabric glue to seal the deal.  For variety, I made a few by folding the fabric lengthwise, hand stitching a running stitch down the open end, pulling the stitch to ruffle, and twisting this to resemble a flower (like I did for the t-shirt recon).  When my fabric scraps were exhausted I had about 25 rosettes that I hot glued down the length of the valance.

To finish the look I sorted out all of the white and off-white buttons I had on hand and glued these sporadically around the rosettes.  I don’t even want to count how many buttons I used, but to guess I think I used around 100 of all different sizes and styles (some were really tiny and just add a bit of “sparkle”).

I was so excited to finish my project and get it hung up I stayed up way past my bedtime!  I am pretty sure it was after 1:00 am (on a work/school night, mind you) when I was hanging this baby up on my office wall.

Curtains

I did these the quick and dirty way.  I cut the fabric (unbleached muslin*, my current fabric of choice) the length of my window, plus five inches the long-wise, and about 1.5 times width-wise.  I really like having an unfinished look, especially when it is combined with something as ornate and delicate looking as I made the valance.  As such, I did not hem the edges of the muslin. I folded the top over five inches, and stitched as follows:

Tiebacks

These were a pretty simple last-minute/finishing touch.  I used two sheets of felt leftover from this lampshade, two squares of the burlap I cut for the valance, and about two inches of scrap velcro.  To make the flowers, I cut one of the felt sheets in half, folded each half in half length-wise and cut slits into the folded side at an angle.

Then I rolled this up,

dabbed some hot glue to close and ruffled the “petals” out.

I cut the second felt sheet in half length-wise, sewed the burlap square in the middle, hot-glued my felt flower in the middle of the burlap, and sewed the velcro to the ends.  Like so:

Now, didn’t that all turn out just dandy?

*I am fortunate to live in a city that has a “fabric district”; this is in downtown Los Angeles adjacent to the fashion and garment districts.  In this area I can buy just about any fabric imaginable at a fraction of their retail prices.  Knowing I was about to do a series of home projects with muslin, I recently purchased 30 unbleached yards from an upholserty and curtain fabric store at just $2.00 a yard.  In this part of town you are able to barter the prices down, and, since I was buying such a large quantity (I was also purchasing additional pricier fabrics for commissioned work; more on this in later posts), I got the price down this low.  I don’t think I could have gotten it lower than $2.50 or $2.75 if I wasn’t buying a whole 30 yards, but this is still an incredible steal compared to the retail prices you will find in retail fabric stores (upwards of $6.00+/yard for muslins).  Moreover, because I bought mine from an upholstery supplier, it was 60″ wide, compared to a fabric retailers 45″ wide variety.

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