How to Make Faux Roman Shades

I hope today’s post is helpful. I’m the queen of just hot gluing something until it looks how I want it to look. But hey, I feel like even that is proof to say you don’t have to be a DIY genius to DIY things. You just have to be willing to try and let hot glue do the rest. ; ) I think I just wrote my new blog motto. With my life motto being, ‘be willing to try and let Jesus do the rest’. PREACH (insert praise hand emoji here)

These faux roman shades are so easy and are a great way to bring color into any room.

So, I knew I wanted to have faux roman shade in the playroom. We had curtains in there before and they just ended up getting used as Tarzan ropes and hiding spots, so something high and tight is what we needed. We have blinds for privacy so whatever went up served no other purpose but for cuteness and color.

I read a few tutorials from other bloggers (this tutorial from Young House Love was my favorite) and set to work to make some faux roman shades.

First off I measured the window sill at the bottom of each window. The sill is wider than the window so I chose to match that length with my shades.

I cut this fabric to the desired length. Most fabrics are only 45″-52″ wide so I picked this one because the pattern could be turned and I was able to use the length of the fabric to make the longer windows shade. If you do pick a fabric with a true top and bottom, you would have to sew panels together to get the right width for a larger window. Or I would have had to make 2 separate shades for this window. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Using my window measurements, I grabbed scrap 1×2’s from the garage and cut them to match the length of the window sill. I can’t remember if I used a miter saw or a handheld saw. The wood will not show. As long as it’s relatively square and the length you want it, it doesn’t have to be precise.

After the fabric for the shades was was cut, I had my little helper cut 4 square scraps of fabric out of the scraps. Those will be used to cover the ends of the wood, therefore, not showing.

We basically wrapped the edges like a present and stapled the fabric on.

I sewed a hem around the sides and bottom of the fabric so that it would look nice and finished. I am not a seamstress.. You can see in the picture below that I didn’t even fold it over twice so that the raw edge was hidden. I just folded it once and sewed as straight as I could. That’s good enough…

From there, I wrapped the fabric around the board and stapled the top of the fabric to the back of the board so that the fabric would cover the top and then fall over the board.

This is when things got crazy.. I had originally tried to be all fancy and measure and use pins to make the folds even and uniform.

First of all, I realized they would be too long that way. I didn’t want them blocking light or anything so they needed to be shorter in length. But also, when looking at pictures of real roman shades, they pull up from the bottom and the folds are all gathered down there. So this is when I got out the hot glue gun and started folding and gluing. I tried to make the folds straight and equal distant apart but all at the base of the shade.

I would hot glue a couple rows, pick it up to make sure there wasn’t any rogue fabric hanging down. If there was…I’d hot glue it where I wanted it. See what I mean about trying and letting hot glue do the rest?

Clearly they aren’t perfect and clearly it’s not that serious. I like things a little more free-form….

To mount them, I measured how high I wanted them above the windows. (Remember, it makes windows look taller and rooms look taller when window treatments are hung closer to the ceiling instead of right above the window..) I used a level to make sure the 1×2 was straight then used a drill and screwed through the board and into the wall on each end of the shade.

You just lift up the shade fabric and drill into the wood. When you put the shade back down, you don’t see any of the unfinished board or the hardware.