fabric covered roller shade

The window treatments in our little guy's room looked like this.

The white panels were from Target.  The valences were made by my mother for our bedroom in our last apartment and I put inexpensive roller shades on the window to block the light but they weren't terribly pretty.  It was time to make some changes.

I used some brushed nickel curtain rods that we had in our last apartment and moved the white panels higher up above the window.  I took down the valences and it was time for a roller shade makeover.

The shades started out like this.  Nothing fancy.  I got these from JC Penney but they are the same old inexpensive vinyl roller shades you can purchase anywhere.

I cut pieces of the stripe fabric I used on his stool to be a bit wider than the shade and long enough to cover the visible shade when it was fully lowered.

I ironed the fabric to get any wrinkles out, took out the spray adhesive and then quickly realized I shouldn't be doing this in the basement and brought everything up to the porch.

I sprayed the fabric with adhesive and smoothed it over the shade.  folding the excess over the bottom and sides of the shade so it looked nice and tidy.

 I worked in sections so I could make sure to get the whole thing nice and smooth.  Spray and smooth, spray and smooth.

Here it is all stuck on.

You can see there is some exposed shade at the top above my fabric.  My shade is much longer than the window itself so I made sure the fabric would cover the shade when fully lowered but didn't bother covering the part of the shade we'd never see.

I rolled up the shades nice and tight and replaced them on the hardware.  It took a couple times of raising and lowering to get the tension right and I had a moment at first when I thought it wouldn't function with the extra weight of the fabric but then it worked all of the sudden.  Since Sunday they have been raising and lowering with ease.  I may have to reglue the edges now and again.  I think the sun beating on them from outside could be tough for the adhesive in the long run but I'll let you know how that goes.

I think they look so much more polished and interesting and the best thing is I didn't have to buy anything new but they look totally different!

brassy apple
between naps on the porch
Mommy by Day Crafter by Night
at the picket fence