The Cheap-o Way of Lining Blinds

Hi, everyone! First, I want to say THANK YOU for your responses to yesterday's post. I mean really, ya'll are awesome and encouraging and I am so happy to have gotten to know many of you through your kind words and sweet emails. This is the reason that blogging is pretty much the best thing ever. :)

Anywho, a few months ago, I mentioned that we lined our cheap-o bamboo blinds with some blackout fabric from JoAnn and many of you asked me how....so today, I'm showing you! Now, heed my warning--at the time we did this I wasn't planning to show a how-to, so you will have to bear with me.

To begin, let's take a trip down memory lane. I purchased these blinds from Overstock.com about 2 years ago. I got them for every window in the house, and I still love, love, LOVE them. They seriously changed the way our house looks. The only problem was that they weren't great for privacy because they weren't lined. I could have upgraded and gotten some more expensive lined bamboo blinds....but I'm too cheap :). So...when the time came to decorate the nursery and guest bedroom (the only rooms that have windows in the front of the house) I knew we had to figure out a solution to our no-privacy problem.

Enter this fabric from JoAnn Fabrics. It's a flame-resistant blackout fabric in Ecru. Originally $10.99 a yard, but we got on sale with a 40% off coupon.

We measured the blinds that needed to be lined beforehand so we knew how much black-out fabric to buy. Once we brought it home, we cut the fabric to fit the blinds (leaving about an 1/2 inch of exposed blind all the way around).

(I got lucky and found ONE picture of my mom lining the blinds back in January!) Score.

We bought some upholstery spray adhesive at JoAnn's (they have a ton of different brands), sprayed it on the blinds, and then placed the fabric on top. Make sure you have a drop cloth underneath the blinds just in case any of the adhesive tries to seep through. We smoothed out all of the wrinkles and then very quickly lined the edges with hot glue (that's right - hot glue).

After the blinds were dry (we waited 24 hours), we hung them back on the windows and held our breaths to see if they would actually fold up. It took some finagling--a lot at first--but after we guided the blinds to fold correctly a few times, they went up and down without a problem!

Now creepers can't spy on us! I'm happy to say that we accompished this for less than half the price of many of the pre-lined blinds I've seen on the market. AND they still work perfeclty six months later. Oh, happy day!

Have a wonderful, wonderful weekend, friends. :)