Give Blinds a Custom Look

   Hello Readers. Today's NO-SEW project is roller blind I made for my little guys room. This was easy and fast to make. It gave a "custom" look to the window without spending a lot of money.

 You can create the blinds you want for very little money. 

 

  I started with a cheap, readily available, easy to install plastic roller blind from WalMart. It's cheap (Yea!) but really unattractive (Boo!). It isn't hard to make it a lot cuter. They are easy to install and come with directions inside so I wont cover that part of the project.
    I choose the nautical fabric from the stash in my closet because it matched the room best. Any light-weight woven fabric will work, knits and heavy weight fabric are not a good idea for this project.

  I spread the blind out on the floor and measured to see how much fabric I would need to cover it. I didn't want to see the blind showing, just my fabric. My window was 68" tall so I wanted my fabric a bit taller/longer. My fabric was 70" long/tall.

I used this iron-on adhesive, Heat n Bond to finish the fabric edges and bottom hem. 

 

I simply folded the fabric under and ironed it in place. This stuff is pretty strong and will hold up well since this is not being used on something worn, it's just hanging out on my blind. It made a clean neat edge that looks great. (And there is no sewing required!) When all the edges of your piece of fabric are finished nicely you are ready to attach the fabric to the blind. 

 

Next comes the duct tape. That's right, you're taping this fabric to the blind. You need good quality duct tape. The cheap tape from the dollar store isn't the same. I used several strips of duct tape to secure the fabric to the blind. Be careful to line the fabric up straight so it will hang even and balanced without being lower on one side.

 Only the tape across the top of the fabric will hold it to the blind, so tape it well. It should hang freely on the sides and across the bottom. 

You can see the fabric and blind here. The sides and bottom edges all hang free. My fabric was a bit more narrow than the blind. That's OK, I can fix that.

 

These plastic blinds can be cut to size so if you need to trim the sides of your blind to fit the window. You can do this before you attach the fabric but you can also adjust the width of the plastic blind at anytime in the process if you need to. I made my fabric the right size from the beginning but didn't cut my plastic blind until the end. Every window is different, you can make the blind fit your sized window. 

 

To pull the blind up and down you should grab the blind itself not the fabric. You can't pull on the fabric itself, and you don't need to. The blind works as if the fabric wasn't even there.

Here is the finished window with curtains on top of the blind. It turned out pretty snazzy if I say so myself. These blinds come in light filtering and black-out weight plastic. They are great for a bedroom to block the sunlight at nap time. Thanks for reading along!