Throughout our weeks of contributing to the Durham Magazine bloggity blog, we’ve brought you guys tales of curtain making and takes of painting projects. This week we’ve decided to toss the two together to see what we come up with. The finished product isn’t quite ready for its close-up, but we’re all about the process and showing you guys what we’re up to along the way.
Enter two drop cloths purchased from Lowes. Yes, drop cloths. The ten dollar, beige-y canvas drop cloths. Don’t buy the kind with plastic on the back. Stick to the basic canvas.
We’re using these as our curtain fabric. Sound boring? Well, you’d be right. That’s why we’re jazzing them up with some bright blue paint and an Ikat pattern. That’s right – the eighties have called and they want their stencil back. We’re using an Ikat stencil from Olive Leaf that is not your grandma’s stencil.
How do you get this to work? First you should wash your drop cloth and then iron it. This will pre-shrink the fabric. Then cut your cloth to the length that you need for your window. You can also cut the cloth in half to make two curtain panels that are less wide than a standard panel. The drop cloth we purchased was 6’ x 9’ and we thought 3 feet was plenty for each panel. Cutting the length in half will require you to hem the cloth either with a sewing machine or with iron on tape like we used in this previous post.
After your panels are prepped you can begin painting them. Yes, painting them. The bad news is that fabric paint comes in only a few colors, mostly neon – hello the eighties are calling (again) and they want their splatter paint back. The good news is that you can buy acrylic craft paint that comes in almost any color and add a product called textile medium to the paint, instantly making it fabric-friendly. You can pick up both the paint and the textile medium at craft stores like Michaels for around five bucks.
So, protect your surface in case the paint bleeds through a bit, mix up 2 parts paint, one part medium and get your stencil and foam brush ready. Slowly and steadily dabbing the paint on the stencil will lead to beautiful curtains that are not only inexpensive but also really unique. After the paint is dry you should iron the back side of your fabric to set the paint. Then, like magic, your curtains and your paint job will be washable. Pretty cool ‘eh? It’s not a fast process, especially when you choose a large stencil like we did, but we’re super-excited about the results so far. We’ll keep you guys posted when the finished products are gracing our living room windows.
Anyone else out there with painting tips or projects to share? Other fun ways to crank out some curtains?
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