DIY Roman Shade: A step-by-step tutorial on how to make beautiful budget-friendly DIY Roman Shades. After making three different versions of faux roman shades and relaxed DIY Roman Shades, I’ve created the ultimate tutorial for making Roman Shades with detailed instructions on how to make your own!
DIY ROMAN SHADE
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DIY Roman Shades are a fantastic way to decorate windows that lack the space for hanging curtains. In our house to date, we’ve made four Roman Shades in our endeavors with DIY Curtains. Making your own Roman Shades is a great way to save money because let’s be honest–custom Roman Shades are EXPENSIVE! Just curtains for one window start at $200! Well, we’ve been able to make them using fabric and made each for less than $100–one in our kids’ bathroom for as low as $18! Yep! I even made it out of a table cloth! So here are the detailed instructions with tons of pictures to make Roman Shades!
Update: This post was previously published but has been updated with new content and directions for your ease of use! Thank you to Tonic Living for partnering with me for this roman shade post. Working with amazing companies like Tonic Living make this blog possible! All opinions are mine alone.
*this post may contain affiliate links at no additional cost to you see my disclosure policy
SEE DIY ROMAN SHADES IN OUR HOUSE
(Our fixed DIY Roman Shade in our kids bathroom)
(DIY Roman Curtains using Ikea fabric in our master bedroom). To make this roman shade we used Ikea curtains (Ritva) with this grosgrain ribbon for budget-friendly roman shades.
HOW TO MAKE DIY ROMAN SHADES
MATERIALS FOR ROMAN SHADES:
*Affiliate links have been used at no additional charge to you. To read my full disclosure policy read here.
- 2-3 yards or more of fabric
- We chose Tonic Living’s Eastern Charm which is exquisite! We ended up cutting the fabric in half width-wise and seaming it together so we would have a longer shade. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend you do it that way, but it worked. In the future, I would recommend purchasing 3 yards of fabric to be safe.
- Fabric Shears
- Drapery Rings
- Needle and Thread
- Sewing Machine
- Board for Mounting the top of the shade- a piece of wood
- Liner fabric (3 yards)
- Iron
- Staple Gun
- Wooden stick or dowel for the bottom pleat
DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING DIY ROMAN SHADES:
1.) Gather all the materials. I have found that using a quality fabric like Eastern Charm really does help. The fabric drapes very well and the quality is evident in the beautiful colors as well!
2.) Measure your window. You are going to want to sew the drape to be the exact width of the window; however, you are going to have to make it wider to allow for seams and for attaching to the liner. A general rule of thumb is 2″ per side extra. Then remember to iron!
3.) Prepare your fabric: First iron it, and then measure and cut. If necessary, seam together the two sides like we did, so it is end-on-end making sure to line up the pattern.
4.) Next, sew together the liner and the fabric (and do the same procedure as above if you need to make the liner longer cutting the fabric in half width-wise and then seaming it together.)
5.) Sew the bottom seam of the DIY Roman Shade and the top.
6.) Next, sew the upholstery hooks to the inside of the DIY Roman Shade spacing them evenly every few inches.
7.) Now, prepare the board for hanging. Wrap the plain wood board in liner so it has a nicer appearance as well as a softer edge. Use a staple gun to attach the liner first, and then the shade.
8.) Attach the upholstery rings to the top of the board, weaving through the thread so it goes through all of the hooks and attaches to the top ring.
9.) To keep the bottom pleat straight, insert the small piece of wood.
VOILA! You have made a DIY Roman Shade that looks amazing!
PIN THIS MAKEOVER SO YOU REMEMBER IT!
I couldn’t tell you enough how amazing it was working with Tonic Living! The customer service is amazing and the quality of fabrics is unbelievable! And even if I wasn’t partnering with them for this project, I would have used them, and plan to use more of their amazing fabrics in the future!
IF YOU LIKE THIS PLEASE PIN IT! EVERY PIN COUNTS 😉
To see my progress through this One Room Challenge make sure to visit these posts and see how we made it look go from this from this:
Blue and White Bathroom: Unbelievable Budget Friendly Bathroom Makeover
IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU’LL LOVE…
See all our curtain projects here: DIY CURTAINS
SHOP ROMAN CURTAINS HERE
Brittany Goldwyn says
My friend was just asking for a roman shade tutorial…I’m sharing this with her!!
heather says
Oh my gosh, your shade turned out BEAUTIFULLY! I love the fabric you chose. And agree on those Turkish towels. They are fantastic!
Charlotte @ Ciburbanity says
I’ve done a couple Roman Shades and they take TIME! Looks great! I’m impressed by your dead straight sewing lines, lady. Nice job!
Ruthie says
I love the fabric on your roman shade! It looks so beautiful in the bathroom! I’m a beginner to sewing and so I really like your tutorial! I might have to give this a try soon! 🙂 Looking forward to the final reveal next week!
Jillian says
Beautiful fabric and nicely done on the roman shade, go you! Good luck, almost there!
kristin @ postbox designs says
Love how it turned out, and a great tutorial! One more reason I finally need to learn how to sew…I guess that is why I tackled my bath for ORC! 🙂 Can’t wait to see your final look!
Erin, Attention to Darling says
This is so gorgeous and inspiring!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE! Definitely pining for later!
Erin, Attention to Darling
http://www.attentiontodarling.com
Emy says
That fabric is gorgeous! You did such a great job making a shade! I’m so impressed!
Mysha says
I love your fabric choice! What an incredible difference! I made a faux roman shade for my bathroom remodel but you really rocked this out girl!
Denise says
It looks so awesome! Great tutorial! Can’t wait to see the reveal!
Lynn Spencer says
Annie, you and your M-I-L did a lovely job on that shade and you chose an exquisite pattern. It is really lovely, clean and crisp. The change in the bathroom already is remarkable and I can’t wait to see the final reveal.
Until then, enjoy the weekend.
Hugs, LYnn
Crystal Fox @ The Weathered Fox says
First of all, I LOVE THE FABRIC THAT YOU CHOSE! It’s gorgeous! What a difference! I love it!
Sarah says
Looove the roman shades! Such a great tutorial – definitely pinning for later. The fabric is gorgeous, too! Can’t wait to see the full reveal!
Meg @ Green With Decor says
I love the fabric you chose, the shade looks so good!
Rachael @ This is our Bliss says
This is GORGEOUS, Annie! I love the fabric you chose! You did a beautiful job. I’m taking notes because I want to make one of these for our kitchen window one of these days 😉
Sahana says
What a great idea. Lovely fabric selection. Thank you for linking with us at #HomeMattersParty . We would love to have you again next week.
Emily says
This is beautiful! I love the fabric you chose. Thanks for linking up with Merry Monday!
emily bennette says
I like that you included photos in this articles. I am more of a visual learner and having pictures is nice. While it is cool that I can make custom blinds I don’t thnk I would want to do this myself. I have a lot of blinds in my home and it would take me forever to make blinds for all of them. It might just be better for me to buy some roman blinds.
Jessica says
I think you just convinced me to make a roman shade for myself. Thank you for this step by step tutorial.
Annie says
Hi Alyson! No, it is not. It could easily be made functional if we adjusted the strings but we chose not to. Hope that helps!
Liz says
Is there any way to make them so they can be taken down and washed? I have cats and their fur gets in and on EVERYTHING!
Carol Howlett says
Instead of attaching it to the board with staples, velcro it onto the board. Unfortunately you will have to “restring” it also.
For some reason, I am only seeing a few of the written instructions. Luckily I know how to make Roman Shades.
Annie says
Hi Liz,
Thanks so much for commenting! Carol has a great suggestion of making it with velcro instead of staples. I haven’t done this personally but think it’s a great idea. In our house (we have a great dane–so it’s short hair), I just take a lint roller to them once in a while. They are up really high so the fur never really gets there. And I give them a good shake to get any dust off!
Hope it helps!
Annie
Annie says
Thanks so much for hopping in Carol. That is a terrific suggestion!
Annie
Liz says
Hi. I have looked at many DIY roman shade tutorials but this one is the very best! Thank you for taking the time to give such great directions.
My question is on the technical side. I have printed out your instructions but the photos do not come with the written. Is there something I need to do on my computer to enable it to copy the photos? These are really necessary for me to follow along from start to finish.
Thank you for your help. I need to make 4 Roman shades and will start to look for fabric today. 🙂
Liz
Annie says
Hi Liz! Oh thank you so much! I apologize for the inconvenience. I completely understand what you are saying. Just to see what it would look like, I tried to print out the entire page and I saw it is 66 pages. Then, I selected the instructions and copied and pasted to a Google Doc (selecting the photos as well) and it was 30 pages. I think with some editing, you can get it down significantly–a lot of the photos formatted to go one per page. But, you can adjust the sizes in Google Docs. Please let me know if that works! The only other suggestion I have is to keep the web page open while you are doing it on a laptop or tablet, and you can reference the photos that way. Good luck! I can’t wait to see your Roman Shades!
Annie
Kim says
Annie, love this tutorial, but one question – how wide is the board at the top that the curtain attaches to? Is there a rule of thumb you used on how wide to make it to drape better?