tape | Jewels at Home

When I bought the roman shades for our master bedroom, I almost ordered one for our bath, too. I’m very glad that I decided to go with something lighter. I ended up making a sheer panel for the bottom half and a matching valance at the top. This gives privacy while still letting in light and our view.

Since I do a lot of my projects after the kids are in bed, I got to see the nighttime view first, and I am so excited that I wanted to post it right away, so here is how our master bath window looks with the new window panels:

Tutorial for adding ribbon to window shades by Jewels at Home

Finished window panels with ribbon detail in master bath.

Daytime view is pretty foggy outside, but I’ll keep trying!

Ribbon border shade tutorial:

You will need:

plain shade or panel: you could use a ready-made shade or sew a simple panel.
ribbon: I used bias tape/ ribbon, because I had it around the house. Grosgrain ribbon would look beautiful, too.
Heat’n Bond Liteiron-on adhesive. You can buy it in strips, but I cut my own strips from a sheet I already had

Lay out your pattern:

Here’s the pattern I used. My bias tape was 1/2″ wide. There are lots of variations, some of which I’ll show below, so go ahead and get creative!
Once you know what pattern you want to use, measure out a length of ribbon, including a little extra just in case.

Ribbon layout for shade

Apply the ribbon:

Apply the Heat’n Bond Liteto the back of the ribbon according to the instructions on the package.
Peel off the backing in short sections and iron onto your fabric, following your pattern.
Mitre the corners by laying the ribbon up to your corner, then folding it back on an angle.
I cut tiny triangles of Heat ‘n Bond and slipped them under the mitered edges to help the corners lie flat. You can see in the second picture the difference between adding the extra triangle (left) and not (right)

Heat 'n Bond applied to back of ribbon - shade tutorial by Jewels at Home

Mitered corners. On the left, you can see that adding a small triangle of Heat ‘n Bond helped the corners lie neat and flat.

More inspirations!

Here are some other great examples of ribbon borders on window panels and shades. There are so many possible patterns and techniques.

These ribbon border roman shades were sold by Pottery Barn a couple of years ago. I like the use of the wide ribbon and simple pattern. This will be the inspiration for our boys’ shades.

Another simple and elegant ribbon border by Wendy at The Shabby Nest. I would love to do something like this in our kitchen, too!

Go to The Shabby Nest

I fell in love with this beautiful picture on Pinterest, but I cannot find the original source. If you find it, please let me know, so I can give proper credit. I love the detail on the ribbon border. It was too ornate for our bathroom, but I am looking for a place to use it!

roller shade with border by What the Vita

Pretty shade with border by Elisa at What the Vita. I love the orange ribbon and the way the shade looks layered with the drapes. She used glue to attach grosgrain ribbon to a plain roller shade! I’m going to look at her tips when I do my boys’ shades, since I won’t be able to iron directly onto them.

Go to What the Vita

Some other ideas would be to

add a ribbon border along the bottom or
add two rows of ribbon around the border, in different colors or widths.

Let me know what you come up with for your windows!

“Jewels”

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DIY decorating projects aren’t just great for saving money. I love the feeling you get when create something that is exactly your vision and absolutely unique. And it’s even more fun when you can share the experience and results with friends. I’m so pleased to introduce you to Ari, my friend, neighbor and fellow working mom/ lover of crafts and decorating. We’ve worked together on quilts for the school fundraiser and shared great times painting furniture and antique hunting. Recently, she got the inspiration to paint decorative trays, and I caught the bug, too.

We picked up some old trays at the flea market last week, and Ari wasted no time getting to work! Here’s the tray she started with, which is one if a pair she picked up for $15 total.

This play tray has a cool mid-century feel, but it’s definitely plain. Just wait until Ari works her magic!

Using an inspiration she had found, which is included in my earlier post on ideas for decorating trays, she decided to paint gold stripes on it for her dining room.

To start, she painted the inside of the tray with a base of white and let that dry overnight. Then she used blue painter’s tape to mask off this great stripe pattern. Chevron and zig-zag patterns are so popular right now, and this is a great play on that idea, without feeling overly trendy. There are metal corners on her tray, so she masked those off, too.

Use blue painter’s tape to mark off your pattern. This is a nice play on the popular chevrons and zig-zags.

Now for the fun part, she sprayed the entire tray with metallic gold spray paint. After letting it dry thoroughly, she removed the tape, and WOW! I can hardly recognize that plain old tray. The result is so sophisticated and will look great in the dining room.

A glamorous transformation for a flea market find. The gold really shimmers and the stripe pattern is so sophisticated.

We have more big plans for decoupage and stencils on trays. I’m also thinking this technique would look great on a wooden box. Come back soon to see how everything turns out.

“Jewels” and {Ari}

Jewels at Home

Tag Archives: tape

Ribbon Border Window Panels ~ Master Bath

Painted Gold Stripe Tray {by Ari}