Tension leads to faking it...

Let me clarify.  Tension rods lead to faking roman shades.

Have you ever searched for a food recipe and after reading all of the ingredients and the step by step instructions you think to yourself "this ain't happening"?  That's how I was with roman shades.  I wanted them for our bedroom, but wasn't sure how to make it happen because:

1)  Real roman shades are expensive
2)  Making real roman shades takes skill and patience.

When you don't feel like practicing your skill or your patience, you can fake it with this wonderful option below.  I have to give credit to Pinterest, who led me to this this tutorial.

Here's how it went for me...

First, I bought a window panel from Target.  $17 buckaroos, I'll take it. 

Then, I measured the inside of the windows I wanted to make the roman shades for (these 2 windows on either side of our bed):

  If I remember correctly, they measured somewhere around 26.5"x52".  So I cut the panel in half longways, and it was just wide enough that I could make both roman shades out of the one panel - sweet!  Once cut in half, two of the sides were still in-tact, which meant I only had to sew two edges (the bottom and the side). 

(If you ever attempt this, keep in mind when you cut your fabric to cut it a little long and a little wide so that once you fold and sew your seams you are at your proper measurements.  Since my measurements were 26.5"x52" I cut the fabric at about 27.5"x53" so that I would have about an inch of wiggle-room for my seams).
So I measured and marked:

Drew my line:

Folded along my pencil line and ironed:

Got out my pins:

Pinned and sewed my seam:

Ta-da!

Bottom seam sewed:

 

I then repeated the steps from above and marked, ironed and sewed the side seam:

Finished product:

Here's where the "fake" part comes in.  The next supply I needed was 3 tension rods! The easy-peasyness of this is going to blow your mind.  

I placed the 3 tension rods in my window frame (I played with the distance of them a bit to achieve the look/length I was going for):

Then removed the top rod, slid it through my the top seam of my shade and draped the rest of the shade behind the other two tension rods.

I pulled the fabric up and over the second rod:

Then did the same thing with the 3rd rod, in the end achieving this look:

And there you have it!  They aren't the real thing, but they easily achieve the look.  Plus, if you wanted the privacy you could always let them down to hang in front of the tension rods and you would just see fabric covering your window.  Luckily, those windows lead out to the driveway on the side of our house, followed by a privacy fence, followed by fields, so we have no problem leaving them just like that all the time.  It's nice to know we can just slide them off the rods if we do need to cover up those windows, though.