Mini Blinds to Roman Shade!

I needed some blinds for our downstairs family room area and when I found this great tutorial on Pinterest (click here for tutorial) - I knew what my next project would be!

Pottery Barn's version- $250

My Version- about $35 (and there is no sewing involved!!!)

Here is the breakdown:

Mini blinds from Walmart $20 (mine were 48" wide)

Merete Curtains from ikea $25 for a pair, so $12.50 per blind (you can use any kind of fabric though).

$2.50 for ribbon

and Fabric glue (sorry I forgot the price but I found a small bottle at Michael's and went through 2 bottles for all 5 of my shades).

The tutorial covers all the specifics of how to make these shades with any kind of fabric, I just included these photos to show you how I made them using the Ikea "Merete" curtains.  Just lay out the mini blinds on top of the curtain.

Leave a little fabric to wrap around the sides of the mini blind slats and cut the excess fabric away.  Then simply use fabric glue to fold the fabric sides over the back of the mini blind slats.  You also glue each of the slats in place on the fabric - mine are spaced 9" apart.  Make sure you are gluing the front side of the mini blind slats to the back side of the fabric!

I let that dry for a day then flipped the shade over and used fabric glue to add my ribbon trim.  

Finally - hang using the included hardware that comes with your mini blinds.

It took about 1 hour to make one.
So I did a little at a time and finished all five of my shades in a few weeks.

I'm pretty pleased with the results.  

They work great, pretty easy to make, they are cute, and they were cheap!

Love projects like that!

Once again check out the tutorial for complete instructions for how to make these shades.