Blind leading the Blind!

So the cat (Bazuna) ruined the blinds in my partners house. As cats tend to do!

To be honest they were ugly anyway! Nothing screams cold, boring, aluminium windows more than plastic, dust infested, venetian blinds! They really should have been thrown out when he moved in but, being the stingy Arab he is..... So I had come up with an ingenious solution that would bring new life to the windows, stop the cat from ruining them and all on a budget to please the man in my life!

DIY ROMAN BLINDS!

You will need the following handy:

- Scissors

- Iron

- Sewing machine

- Measuring tape

- Ruler

- Craft glue or double sided sticky tape

- An assistant..... (This is where the Boyfriend gets roped in)

First things first, take down the old venetian mini blind. Lay this out on the ground so that you can begin to take it apart.

The cat was not happy about this......

Use your measuring tape and ruler to mark out a rectangle of curtain fabric that over laps the blind edges by about 2.5cm. This over lap will be folded in and sewn to create a neat edge. You only need to do this on the two vertical edges. These are the ones that will be sewn up. Cut this out making sure all edges are square.

Fold your over lap over and pin securely on the two vertical edges.

Turn the fabric over and give it an iron if necessary. I picked up some cheap bargain fabric from Pete's Emporium that was pretty creased!

If it is proper curtain fabric with a lined thermal backing DO NOT IRON THE BACKING!!!!!

Rookie move no.1

Next sew, sew, sew! Make sure all the edges are neatly sewn up. Alternatively you can just use iron on backing tape. This would make things a lot quicker, especially great if you don't have a sewing machine! Just don't touch the thermal lined backing!!!

Now time to attack the blind with the scissors!

There are three vertical strings which hold the blind together and help guide the venetian slats open and closed. The outside strings create a ladder all the way up. The 'rungs' on the ladder need to be cut. This will make the blind slats move up and down the central string.

At the bottom of the blind there is a cap which should hide the central string inside. Remove the cap and undo the knot holding the base of the blind to the central strings. Do this for each side and then take the base right off.

You should now be able to slide all of the slats off the blind. This allows you to get rid of as many slats as you want so that you can create a back bone for your Roman blind.

For our blind I decided that five folds was a good number. So we kept four slats and evenly laid them out on the material. Then we re-attached the base by threading the central strings back through the holes and tying them up again. This can be a bit hard to get even. No one wants a wonky blind bottom!

Ok, so you have your material all sewn up, your blind laid out with the desired spacing and your assistant on stand by!

Time to put this bad boy together!

Start by either gluing or double sided taping the top of the blind to your fabric. Then you need to attach each blind slat that you have spaced out to the curtain fabric. We just used double sided tape for these. Repeat this for each slat. These will pull the fabric into folds once you pull on the blind string.