DIY: Custom Curtain Panels on a Budget

When I’m helping expecting parents design their nursery, I tell them to spend the money where it counts! There’s nothing wrong with combining luxury items with discount items and making it all look amazing together. Dressing the windows can finish the room—not only does it help darken the room to aid sleep, it adds a decorative element as well. Unfortunately, style and function don’t always come cheap. If you have more than one window in the room, the curtain panels can start to add up!

So, here are my two favorite DIY tricks to turn inexpensive window panels into custom masterpieces!

In my daughter’s nursery, there are two windows that needed decorating. I love hanging curtains higher than the top of the window to create height in the room. I knew if I was going to use white, they’d have to be lined so that the sun shining through didn’t make them look transparent. I found these white thermal curtain panels for $35 per panel—how could I beat that?

They turned out pretty cute, right? Now, anyone that has been reading my DIY posts knows that I can’t sew. So how did I attach the rosette trim? Hot glue, baby!

1. Chiffon Rose Trim 2. PomPom Trim 3. Double Rose Trim

 

My second favorite “custom” trick is to attach fabric to the bottom of curtain panels, similar to what we did in our celebrity nurseries. (Shhh, don’t tell Tori Spelling her curtains are from Target!)

Here’s Tori Spelling’s nursery:

And Brooke Burke’s nursery for her two youngest!

Both nurseries started with prefabricated curtain panels. Most stores that sell the panels offer them in limited sizes. Adding the printed fabric at the bottom of the panel not only adds length to the curtain, it also ties it into your nursery design! Caden Lane offers all of their fabric by the yard; you can match your windows to your crib bedding!

Don’t just settle for plain old window dressings. Bust out that hot glue gun, and get creative! You’re friends will be oohing and ahhing over your “custom” window panels in no time.