I searched, and searched, and searched some more for the perfect fabric for the nursery curtains, and while I liked a few, nothing was exactly what I wanted. Then, while searching around on pinterest I saw a bunch of rooms with horizontal striped curtains and LOVED them! Well, the search for the horizontal stripe fabric in the perfect colors wasn’t very successful so I turned to a couple of blog posts I saved a while back. One post was about using drop cloths to make curtains and the other post was about painting fabric to create horizontal striped curtains. Yay!
So, I went to Home Depot and bought a drop cloth for about $10 and went to Hobby Lobby to buy acrylic paint and acrylic medium (to make the paint usable on fabric) for about $5. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try, and if they didn’t work or I hated them I only spent $15 so it didn’t really matter.
2 parts acrylic to 1 part medium
Step 1. Decide how long you want to curtains to be and how wide.
Stewy is checking everything out… blue bandage is from his vet visit earlier in the day.
Step 2. cut your drop cloth to length. I added about a half-inch on all sides to finish the edges
Step 3. If you’re like me, you can’t sew with a sewing machine to save your life, so you use your go to “no-hem” tape! This stuff is amazing and magical and if you haven’t tried it… try it. I ironed all the sides of the drop cloth with the tape to create nice finished edges.
Step 4. Decide how thick you want the stripes to be. I decided on 8″ for mine. Measure and tape your lines on the fabric. (sidenote: remember to measure from the top of the tape for the stripe below) I also used frog tape to prevent the paint from seeping under the tape… I hate blue painters tape… it doesn’t work.
Let pretend in this next picture that my house isn’t a total mess… k thanks 🙂
Step 5. Mix your acrylic with the medium and paint away.
Step 6. Take the tape off and let the paint dry
Step 7. Hang up your curtains! I used clips so I didn’t have to worry about creating a pocket for the curtain rod, but it would be as simple as adding extra length to the fabric and creating the pocket when you fold the fabric over and use the no-hem tape.
Here’s the first introduction to Elmer, Kennedy’s rocking elephant 🙂
Finished product… love them! I still need to hang them properly, but I was pretty excited to just get them up there and see what it looked like. They’re seriously the PERFECT color and adding to the excitement, the $15 pricetag 🙂
I have ONE DIY left to finish before the nursery is ready to go and I’m hoping to get it done this week/weekend. Then I’ll FINALLY be able to show pictures of the whole thing. I know everyone is on the edge of their seat, biting their nails in anticipation, right?!
Honey DOs and I Love YOUs 
Honey…I am so very proud of you! There is just no job that you cannot conquer! And…everything turns out beautiful! Can’t wait to see it “Live and in Color”. Love you both and can’t wait to meet my first great grandchild, Kennedy…getting a little teary-eyed over here. Soon and very soon.
Smooches, blessings and hugs from your Grams.
Thanks Grams! Can’t wait to see you!
Melissa, Those look so cute, you may have just inspired me to try to make some curtains for my spare bedroom. Curtains are so expensive to buy. Can’t wait for the whole show. Tammie
The curtains look awesome!
Thanks! They were actually pretty fun to do, too!
I have been searching for something like these since Pinterest too!! How well do they wash?
I haven’t tried yet… I’ll update if it doesn’t go well though
Aw they turned out awesome! Such an easy project, but big impact! 🙂
I love working with canvas drop cloth! It’s the perfect neutral color and they’re so cheap! I attempted to make our upholstered headboard out it but decided to nix it and use something else. I just used it for our upholstered, nailhead trimmed cork board for our office. I love it!
Thank you for the inspiration!! I’ve bought everything I need and will be starting this project tonight, so excited!!