Sidelight Curtains

First of all, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! My mom, younger brother, and grandma came down from VA and it was really nice to see them again! I hadn’t seen them in over a year – geez how time flies!! We (Hubs and I) hosted Thanksgiving for the first time this year and it was a blast! Right down to our acorn war in the backyard after dinner. =]

I have been working on making curtains for my sidelights by the front door. EVERY TIME someone or something went by the dogs would go crazy! Plus, it was hard to keep up with having to clean them from the dogs jumping on them and putting their noses to the glass. I didn’t really want to block out the light completely, but I did want to make it so the dogs couldn’t see out. I didn’t want sheer fabrics just because 1. I didn’t want people seeing in and 2. I couldn’t find one that I liked. I had seen curtains like this…

But since I decided against a sheer fabric I didn’t want the curtains to be stuck in place on top and bottom. I got an idea from my neighbor to just attach the curtains up top and allow them to hang down. That way when I did want them “up” I could easily pin them. (I will eventually attach buttons and a strap so that the strap can loop around and hook a button when I want them up.) This is what I came up with…

Ta da! This is actually my second go around with these curtains. I learned the hard way to measure twice and cut once. The first set I made was too narrow and although it did help with the dogs not being able to see out (as much) it still wasn’t what I wanted. Guess what that fabric is?…. A fabric tablecloth from TJ Maxx that was $9.99! When I was looking for fabric I was having a hard time finding a fabric I liked for the price I wanted to pay. I needed at least two strips of fabric that were 3 yards each. I did the fabric curtains front and back so I needed two pieces that were 11.5 inches wide by at least 87 inches long. Let’s pretend I found fabric for $4/yard (not likely). I needed 6 yards altogether which was going to cost me AT LEAST $24. Say I had a 20% off coupon at JoAnn’s… $24 – 20% = about $19.20 plus tax. When I found the fabric tablecloth and saw that it was 60 inches x 94 inches I knew it would work. And the price? DONE! It helps to think outside the box!

I don’t have step by step pictures but it was really simple! I just cut four pieces to the width and length I needed and then sewed, right sides together, leaving enough of a gap to turn the curtains right side out. Repeat for the other curtain. Then I held the curtain up to the window and guestimated (technical term) how much I wanted to “hang over” (you can see what I’m talking about if you look at the top of the curtain).

I did, however, suffer a boo boo. =[ I was pinning my little heart away and a pin went right underneath my nail. It huuuuurt, so try not to do that! =]