DIY- Star Tie Up Shades

Hurricane Sandy is here and she is a mean bitch!  We have been watching the news all day and praying that everyone who decided to wait out the storm {crazy idea}will be okay and that our beloved beach house that we rent will stay intact. Time to get my last post in before our power goes out.  For all of you out of towners, enjoy this post and keep us in your prayers!    

My DIY star tie up shades: Oh how I love thee.....

This DIY project was done for the windows in my nephew's bedroom.  I am in the middle of transforming his space into a camo/military themed room.  In a recent post  I shared my steps on transforming this dresser with some Chalk Paint, new hardware, and some craft paper.  In that post I shared my excitement for this DIY project. I am so proud of this project because it isn't something I would normally tackle.  Sewing projects are NOT for me and if there is any chance I can take a shortcut around sewing....I'M GAME!!!  So that's exactly what I did.  I had originally planned on doing floor to ceiling drapes but the bunk beds and dresser were interfering with how the panels were laying on the floor so instead I went with this tie up shade from Target.  My sister already has a roller shade installed inside the window frame so that will be the main source of light control. The only problem was I felt like these shades were REALLY blah especially because the walls are already a creme color. That's when the wheels started turning....

Before I left Target I grabbed one of these brown 63" panels {shown below} not knowing exactly what I wanted to do with it yet. When I got home it finally hit me, "why not cut out a couple of stars and adhere them onto the tie up shades to go along with the patriotic/military theme?"  Then I got lazy and thought about how attaching a bunch of stars might be very time consuming.  I was interesting in a quick DIY so instead I decided to do one big star on each shade. I used the one brown curtain panel for the stars because I thought it would be a nice pop of color on the light creme shades.  Now the only problem was to figure out how to get the perfect sized star shape to trace. 

I ran to Jo Ann Fabrics and they had a whole slew of stars to choose from.  I picked up this star with every intention of tracing it and then returning it the next day.  No harm in that right? Use and abuse...lol 

 

After I traced the two stars and cut them out, I gave both stars frayed edges.  I didn't want a refined, straight edge look. I liked the look of a distressed frayed military star.  To fray the edges you just brush the edge of the scissors against the grain, if you will {my golf lingo}, just like you are trying to curl a piece of ribbon.  

 

Then I pressed each star to get any wrinkles out before I adhered them to the tie up shade.  I had a bath towel over top of my kitchen table along with a table cloth to create a wide flat surface to iron on.  I also pressed the tie up shades. 

I layed the star on the shade to get an idea of where I wanted it. I measured and found the center point on the shade and I put the top point of the star on that mark. I am already LOVING it at this point.

 

I picked up some iron on, no sew, hem tape and started cutting pieces to line the edges of the star.  

This tape is super easy to work with. You just peel the paper side off and put the tape in between the two fabrics you are trying to bond.  Like so.....

Lay your top fabric over the tape and press with the iron for 5 secs. Voila!  Fabric is now bonded. All I have to do now is repeat that 20 more times...Ahhhhh! 

SO WORTH IT...and I have to admit this DIY was dummy proof.  The directions on the hem tape were easy and doing each point of the star at a time helped me keep the star in place.

I love how the frayed edges turned out, subtle but just enough to give it that detailed look. Did I mention I am a "detail" girl?  I love knowing/researching/completing details of everything, especially fun DIY projects like this one.

What do you think?  Feeling up for an awesome NO SEW project?  I love that crap, anything to keep me from sewing. I will have to stop avoiding that eventually but for right now I love a good shortcut.  Swooning over this hard core.... I might have to do something else in this room just so I can blog about it again.