DIY Blackout Curtains

How was everyone’s weekend?  Break any bones?  I did!  Well, I technically broke it on Thursday but I spent most of the day in urgent care on Friday.  Looks like the next 6 weeks I won’t be doing much of anything that involves lots of walking or moving.

But, I have some more horrible quality photos to show you guys.  Today I’m talking about how we did a little DIY and made some black out curtains.

Chloe’s old room faced the east where the morning sun made it bright and cheery.  I never showed you guys their old room.. so here are a few pictures to catch you guys up to speed.

For a few months we lived with a black blanket nailed over the window.  I wanted to hang curtains, but I wanted the curtains to be thick enough so the light wouldn’t come in.  Unfortunately all the thick material I could find was in solid colors, but I didn’t want a solid fabric curtain.  I wanted a curtain that matched her bird-themed nursery at the time.  So I joined the two.  A printed fabric and a dark dense back.  I (or my mother who made Chloe’s curtains) sewed them together to get a DIY blackout curtain.

Amazing how dark it makes her room, yes?  Her new room faces the north, but it can still be amazingly bright in there.  Here’s a view of the fabric with a design, and a view of the thick threaded solid fabric on the back….

…and this is my mother’s beautiful seamless sewing technique.  She sewed it like a blanket.  When she was done, she turned it inside out to get that beautiful seamless line.

I did the same to Emme’s room, but I didn’t have a sewing machine then.  Instead I used fabric tape.  Fabric tape works for others, but it didn’t work for me.  I couldn’t get the straight edge I was aiming for.  But here’s a view of Emme’s DIY blackout curtain with the blinds open.  It’s still cool and relaxing in her room…  

…and here they are with the blinds closed…

…and these are the blinds we have in her room.  They are the exact blinds we talked about in this post here….

…and this is my technique of how I did a seamless fabric tape.  As you can imagine, it was a lot of fabric tape which is now pealing apart in different areas.

So there you have it.  That’s how we made some DIY blackout curtains.