Thank you all again SO much for all the well wishes for us as we have welcomed our sweet Lilly Eileen into the world! I am still in the hospital right now (hopefully heading home soon!), so I have, obviously, been a bit absent from the blog world enjoying time with my husband and our sweet baby. You can follow me on Instagram for lots of #lillstill pics. Yes, she has her own hashtag already. 🙂

Anyway, in the meantime, I’ve got some posts already all set to go so you won’t be let down. 🙂

Now, I am SO excited to finally be sharing some of the nursery projects! I’m going to share each of the mini-projects with y’all (and how we did them) before showing you the BIG nursery reveal! Seriously, I can’t WAIT! This room has come a LONG WAY from where it started.

I will say, off the bat, I am not a “pro” at any of this by any stretch of the imagination. But, I do love to feel and be a little creative, so I had a TON of fun with this. I also happen to be EXTREMELY lucky (in many ways) and I am married to a crazy awesome handy-man of a husband who LOVES Home Depot, so this whole nursery thing became an awesome project for the both of us.

Enough rambling, let’s get to today’s tutorial!

How-To Make DIY No-Sew Curtains

I cannot sew to save my life. Just can’t. Me + needle + thread = disaster. Thus, enter no-sew curtains.

Since we were doing a gender neutral, Kenya-themed nursery, I wanted the curtains to really be a fun, unique pop in the room. However, because of the way our little Cape Cod-style house is, the two rooms upstairs (our room and the nursery) HAVE to have extremely attractive window AC units in them.

This proves to be a challenge for curtains because if the curtains come down past the unit, well, then the curtains blow all over the place when the unit is on and the air can’t really circulate around the room.

So, I have to work with what I got.

Here is the window before:
I got this AWESOME, super unique fabric (all the way FROM KENYA!) and I was so pumped to make curtains out of it.

Now, I can’t take credit for how I MADE the actual curtains… I basically modified this tutorial from Young House Love.

Step One: Prep Your Fabric

Now, I had a full two yards of this fabric and that was enough for my project. Make sure that you have enough fabric according to the size of your windows.

Also, be sure to wash AND dry your fabric before you do this… you want to make sure it’s preshrunk!

After it’s dry, iron out all of the wrinkles in your fabric.
Meanwhile, it HELPS to have a hunky husband hanging your curtain rod and all that jazz while you’re making the curtains. If you don’t have a hunky husband, that’s okay! You can hang the curtain rod before or after you make the curtains. It doesn’t matter. 🙂

Step Two: Measure Your Fabric

Get out a measuring tape and measure FIRST the height that you want your fabric to be. See if you need to trim any off. Be sure to leave AT LEAST an inch of extra fabric on each side (for the hemming).

Once you’ve got the HEIGHT measured, make your cuts accordingly.

Step Three: Make and Cut Your Panels

Get out a measuring tape and measure HALF WAY across the length of the fabric… NOT height. Make a mark so you know where you marked. Be sure to leave AT LEAST an inch of extra fabric on each side (for the hemming).

Once you’ve got the panels measured (and triple checked), make your cuts accordingly.

Now, this Heat N’ Bond Hem Iron-On Adhesive is the hem tape that you need. I bought it for like $1.25 at Wal-mart but you can pretty much get it at ANY arts and crafts store. I bought one pack and I have used it now on a few projects and haven’t run out yet.

Step Four: Make Your No-Sew Hems!

Now this may be tough to see in the picture below, but this is the part where you hem your curtains. Now, don’t do like I did and hem on the wrong side of the fabric the first time around… this gets messy to fix.

Basically, follow the directions on the package of the Heat N Bond hem tape… measure and cut out the tape to the length of the hem. Place it down on the fabric. Fold the fabric OVER the hem tape (DO NOT IRON DIRECTLY ON THE HEM TAPE), and voila! I apologize for not getting a ton of pictures of this part… I was so caught up in figuring out how to hem the curtains and not mess them up completely that I forgot to get pictures. Woops. Forgive me?

Step Five: Get Curtain Clips and Hang Your Curtains!

I just got a package of basic curtain ring clips from Home Depot for like $6. We laid out the curtain panels so they were even among the clips and hung them on the curtain rod BEFORE we put the rod on the wall.

Then voila! We hung our curtains!

Aren’t they pretty?

And here’s a picture taken during the day so you can see a little more what they look like.

I love them! And I loveeeeeee that the fabric is from Kenya. Makes them that much more special!

What do you think? Will you do a project like this? Have you ever made no-sew curtains before?

Linked up with Shanna!