i have to say, i’m so proud of myself. i said i was going to get curtains done this weekend, and i got them done!

like i said a while back, we have company coming to see our house for the first time. and this just isn’t any ‘ol company. this is one of my bestest friends and her family…my crafting/creative guru and i can’t wait for her to see our house. our house isn’t on house tours or anything, but it is our home and we’ve done quite a bit to make it ours. she and i just go way back when it comes to our houses….mike and i helped her and her husband paint their house, we talked about paint colors, decor, etc…so, i just can’t wait to show her what we’ve done here.

one of my must-haves before our special visitors was curtains for our great room. we’ve slowly been remaking the room for literally two years now and i was at a place where i just felt like we needed something more to warm up the room and make it feel more cozy. we have a leather sectional, and a cloth, off-white loveseat and simple side tables and decor. but i still felt like it needed something. so i bargained with mike – i was going for an area rug or curtains. curtains won.

the search for pre-made curtains didn’t turn up exactly what i was looking for, so of course i thought “i can make these.” i wanted a soft material, in a greenish-blue and i found the perfect fabric in jo-ann’s home decor fabric department. and if i was custom-making my curtains, i could pretty much do whatever i wanted as far as hanging them. they could have grommets, or slide on to the rod, or i could use curtain rings with clips. i’m a huge fan of the latter, which made the idea of making panels even easier. no worries about having a hem that will fit a rod and no need to try and install grommets for the first time ever. so i set off to make my easy panels.

first step was to convince my loving husband to install the curtain rod. a tip: if you’re making panels, hang the rod first. this way you can double-check your panel length measurement based on where the rod actually will hang. we used the umbra curtain rod which i found on sale at target. for the curtain rings, i went with the brushed nickel allen + roth rings from lowes.

with the rod up, it was time to start the panels. i picked up about 5-3/8 yards of my fabric at jo-anns, along with matching thread. a tip: the first step before measuring panel lengths is evening off your edges (aka squaring them off). fabric stores don’t cut anything in a straight line, so it’s a must to get your edges as squared off as possible. i used a right-angle square and then a straight edge to get my line all the way across the 54″ wide fabric. once the edges were straight, i was able to cut my two panels, just by halving my fabric.

next step was to do my hems along the selvage edges…in this case, my vertical edges. i did a 1″ hem on both sides and stitched them up.

then, it was time for the top and bottom hems. when i figured the length of the panels, i allowed for a 4″ hem on both top and bottom.

and then, finished! final step was clipping the new panels on the curtain rings and doing the final “fluffing.”