Hello, hello, Ribbon Retreat readers! I am so excited to be here with you for a series of posts on simple and fun things that you can sew for your child’s room! It is simple to come up with things for little girls, but a bit trickier for the little men in our life, so that is what I will be focusing on.
I had an idea to upgrade my son to a big boy bed with a Dr. Seuss bedroom makeover a long, long time ago. I even painted fabulously funky colorful stripes on the wall. And then I got busy with other things and the bedroom makeover got stalled. This series is giving me the deadlines and motivation that I need to get going on that again! I am excited.
Let’s start with a super simple way to jazz up the windows in your little mister’s room: a simple tube valance tutorial. This will be the easiest substitute for curtains that you will ever make!
For my son’s valance I used the Bright Stripes Celebrate Seuss fabric from The Ribbon Retreat. I used three yards of it, but you may not need that much. Let’s talk about that now.
The first thing that you will need to do is measure your window’s width. Over my son’s window was the valance rod (here is an example of a valance rod) that my mom put up 20 years ago, which is flat and wide. It stretched over the window to be about 86 inches long and 3 inches wide. I wanted plenty of room in length to scrunch the valance up a bit so that it didn’t have to be perfectly flat, since this is a silly Dr. Seuss room, after all, and it obviously had to go all the way around in width, so I cut a strip of fabric that was 8 inches wide and 108 inches long (three yards). Since it is only 8 inches wide I could have gotten all of the length and more from one yard of fabric, but I chose not to because I thought that the pattern would be very difficult to match up on the seams, and I knew I would use the rest of the fabric for my throw pillows and other projects later on. I actually wish I had made it even longer or even doubled the length so it would have been super scrunched up, but I do like it the way that it turned out.
Once you have cut your strip, iron your fabric. At the ends, fold and iron the ends about 1/2″ and sew them into place as shown.
Now simply fold your fabric in half lengthwise (or the “hot dog” way as I would say to my elementary students—not the “hamburger way) so that the right side of the fabric faces inward, as shown, and sew the tube shut.
Turn your tube inside out and go slide it onto your valance rod! Can you believe how SIMPLE that was?? Score.
See you next week for another installment in this fun series!
What little boys wouldn’t love “fabulously funky” stripes painted on their wall with this super bright and colorful Tube Valance in place of boring old curtains? 🙂 Thank you Sarah again for sharing your incredible talent with us. I can’t wait for your next project of more Seuss-tastic fun and creativity! 🙂
The Ribbon Retreat has a plethora of fun, fun fabric that would be perfect for any room makeover! Check out these other fantastic tutorials to continue your home decor inspirations…Fabric Flower Wreath, How To Make A Throw Pillow, How to Make a Fabric Wall Hanging, Nautical Beach Inspired Wreath, and much, much more.
Happy Creating & Happy Decorating!