A Little Twill Tape Can Be An Unhappy Window's Best Friend

I finished a cute little piece yesterday to show to all of you today. I've been waiting and working on it for a while and now that it's finished I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. One thing, I have nothing to show for it. Why? Not to put all the blame on the Mr. but he had to work late last night. In fact he has to work late every night this week so I won't get out to take photos until the weekend.

But don't worry about tomorrow, I take my own Thrift Store Thursday pics:) Thank goodness for makeshift garage studios.

Instead today, I want to show you a neat little project I had been procrastinating on for some time. I bought these plantation blinds a couple months ago at the Home Depot on a HUGE discount. Like 80% off. Only, they didn't have the neat twill tape running down the cords like I had wanted. So I took them home, hung them and made my own twill treatment in the living room which came out great! The only problem is that I also needed to do the twill treatment in the kids room and I was too pooped to get up on that ladder and do it all over again.


Until Monday. I just got this surge of energy. I had brought the ladder up to take down the 'Happy Birthday Lily and Molly' sign and decided to finish their bedroom blinds once and for all.

If any of you would like to try this to save some money it was super easy. All it took was a little hot glue and a large roll of twill tape from my local wholesale bargain fabric store.

I didn't take any pics while I was doing it but its pretty easy to explain. First I measured how long each piece should be by holding it up to the blinds and doubling it from the bottom. I took that piece and used it to measure eight more pieces since that's how many I needed.

Then I took off the clipped wooden piece that covers the top of the blinds. I hot glued the twill strip to the top of the blind, ran it down to the bottom and hot glued it to the bottom. I then ran the twill tape up to the top of the other side and hot glued it there. I did that eight more times, clipped the wooden pieces back on and presto, twill tape plantation blinds!

I can't tell you how much more it is to purchase plantation blinds with the twill tape. At the Home Depot the price goes up like 120%, because you have to custom order it. PLUS, at my latest visit, I noticed that IKEA now sells plantation shutters in wood colors and white for uber cheap....but no twill:(

Now my house is finally symmetrical again!

One downside, I can't pull up the blinds, BUT since we have small children I cut off the cords anyway. We simply use them by opening and closing them. You could make fully functioning blinds by hot gluing 2" pieces of bias tape to either side of each twill tape under each slat but I just don't have that kind of patience....or time.

Now to get to the other hundred house projects that have been sitting on the backburner. What home decor projects have you been procrastinating on this summer?

And in case you missed it, the title of this post is a spoof off of a quote from Dolores Claiborne:)