DIY No Sew Shade (aka the forgotten project)

 I came across a great tutorial (there's actually several great tutorials) on pinterest on how to make a no sew roman shade using and old mini blind and I knew that it was exactly what I needed for our little window in the laundry area.  I will share that project in a moment but I feel as though this project needs a back story.

Here's our laundry area long ago when we first moved in and how we turned our dryer into a table for used paint cans.  Functional, yes.  Pretty, no. 

Oh, here's an up close view of the window just in case you needed that.

After some painting and paint can removal we were now at this stage in this room. I actually love the yellow in here, it's so bright and cherry. 

For some reason I never finished painting this window completely and it still has painters tape on the window panes - it's one of those "one day when I have free time I will finish this" projects.  Hmmm, seems I might have a lot of those.

So anyway, like I said earlier - I found a great tutorial by Jenny- (an awesome blogger/designer) on how to make a no sew shade and I was all about that.  *Please refer to her ever so perfect instructions for this project - it's really great.  I gathered my supplies: the old mini blind, my chevron fabric, scissors and fabric glue and I was all ready to go.  Oh, did I mention that this was in January?

I completed my first big task (which honestly is probably the most difficult part of the process) and removed my thin ladder strings from the blind and I was feeling good.  But then, I got distracted.... forgot what I was doing and tossed the mini blind under my bed to never be seen again.  Just kidding, I did see it again, and again and again.  It sat there creeping out from under the bed every so often, just reminding me of the project that never was.

Then, all of a sudden it's September and the old mini blind still sat in waiting and I just couldn't take it any longer.  This project needed finishing.  Of course, after months of being tossed around this blind was a giant disaster and a tangled mess so it took a little while to remember what in the world I was doing and how it needed to look.

But, this story has a happy ending so I worked it out. After I got all of the knots untagled the next thing I needed to do was to remove the thick bottom slat of the blind and then remove any slat I didn't want.  

I ended up with just 4 slats and of course the thick bottom piece (which I put back on after removing the unwanted pieces).  Then it was a matter of measuring my fabric, cutting it and placing my blind on top and spacing out my slats.  No measuring utensils were used during this project.  I eyeballed everything - not sure if I would recommend that.  Oh yes, and Silas through a deck of cards all around the room while I was spacing out my blind - good times.

Then, I just glued the fabric to the blind- top, bottom, sides and middle.  

And finally after months of forgetting, I had this.  Not the most perfect or most beautiful "roman" shade in the world but I like it and it's semi-functional (you may have to remove the whole thing every time you want to adjust the height - this is real life).  Hey, and it was cheap.  Just forget you still see tape in the windows and an unfinished painted window...maybe that should be my next thing I tackle. 

I would say this space is looking better, now on to decide what is next on our long list for back there. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Hope you all enjoyed your weekend!  Can't wait to share about mine, hey guess what - we were on a youth retreat again, this time our Fall Retreat.  It was awesome and I loved every second.  So how about you?  Have any unfinished projects out there just waiting in the wings to be done?