DIY No Sew Roman Shades

This was a guest post we did for Jordan over at FunCheaporFree.com a few months ago.  We were thrilled to pop over and share this money saving tutorial for some gorgeous No Sew Roman Shades.  Yes, no sewing required! Don’t we all love the sound of that?!  In case you missed it on her amazing site, we’ve got you covered!

Switching up window coverings  is a great way to totally change the look and feel of a room. When we moved into our house about 4 years ago, one of my very first projects was taking down the blinds in our front room and putting up curtains. We love them!  Along with curtains, I have always had a thing for Roman shades.  They are so simple, clean, and functional, but holy smokes-they can be expensive! Steff and I have been trying our hand at making Roman shades for a much smaller price tag.  We’ve got it figured out and are so excited to share it with you!  It’s so easy, you’ll be Roman shading windows all over the place!

Here’s what you need:

• Mini blinds to fit the window (the cheap ones work just fine!)
• Fabric
• Iron on fusing web
• Iron
• E6000 glue
• Fabric scissors
• Measuring tape
• Pencil

First step is to measure and cut the fabric.  Leave one inch on each side of the fabric for “hemming”  with the fusing web.  Our blinds were 45 1/2 inches wide, so we cut our fabric 47 1/2 inches wide.  That gave us an extra inch on each end for hemming.  Do the same for the length.  

Next, iron the edges down about one inch and place the fusing web under the fold.  Then iron over the fusing web – this is what makes these shades ‘No Sew.’  We love this stuff!    ‘Hem’ all four sides of the fabric using the fusing web.  

Now set the fabric aside while you prep the blinds.  You are going to totally un-assemble them.  Start by popping off the little white clip-in pieces on the very bottom of the blinds.  There will be 2-5 depending on the size of blinds you’re using.

Next, untie the knot in each hole.

Now remove the ladder strings by cutting all the way up.  The ladder strings are easy to spot, they are thinner than the cord strings, and they look like a ladder! 😉  DO NOT cut the cord string than runs straight down through the blinds.

Now that the ladder strings are cut and removed, start sliding off all the individual blinds.  Leave 4-6 in place, they will make up the Roman shade. 

Now lay the un-assembled blinds on the back side of the fabric.  Space the remaining blind pieces equally apart.  We left 5 on, plus the bottom piece.  We spaced ours about every 5 inches as shown below. 🙂   

Here’s where the E6000 comes in.  Run a strip of glue along the curved side of each piece and glue onto the fabric, being sure to keep your spacing right.  

Once each piece is glued, glue the top and the bottom piece in place as well.  Also, break of the little wand hook that’s on the top.

Now thread the strings back through the holes in the bottom piece and tie a knot.

They will hang the same way the regular blinds hang using the hardware they come with.  Super simple!  

That’s it!  Some beautiful, custom Roman shades!  They pull up and down easily using the string pulls on the original blinds, they hang just behind the shades on the right side.  Look how nice they fold up!

I am honestly so in love with how these turned out!  I just used the existing mini blinds that were in the window, so the only expense was the fabric.  Hit a fabric store and use a coupon and this is one inexpensive project!  (We got this fabric from Hobby Lobby and used a 40% coupon-cost less than $5!)

If you liked this tutorial, we’re sure you’ll love these too:

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Linking up to some of these parties: