dining room curtains, made from Target shower curtains

Ta-DA!!

As I've discussed, I couldn't find ready-made curtains that complemented the living room.  There were plenty of curtains that I liked, just not that I liked when viewed with the living room.

These are in the same general color scheme of blue, brown and cream like the living room, and I think they work pretty well.

I actually bought this shower curtain from Target for my mother in law's bathroom a year ago, and I've always liked it. Its an nice large pattern, but as a shower curtain, its only 72 x 72.  I know some say short curtains are coming back, but I really like the look of a long curtain, so I wanted to lengthen them a bit.  Two aisles over from the shower curtain aisle I came across a sheet set that exactly matched the blue in the shower, so I got that.

I will provide a tutorial next week, but these were really easy.  I used hemming tape to add the sheet to the shower curtain, then covered over the area where they met with white ribbon.

I may have gone a weeeeeee bit over budget.  My original plan was to buy three shower curtains and cut them in half, thereby using only one panel per window.  I did that to the first one, and the panel looked so tiny and thin.  I prefer a fuller curtain.

Here's the skinny curtain (on the right):

and here's the full panel:

Bigger is better, right? I just finished up the other half of the curtain and hung the two skinny ones together.  But that meant that I needed three more shower curtains.

In total, I ended up using six shower curtains ($150), two sheet sets ($76--that color sheet was only sold as a set; it would have been much cheaper had I been able to just buy two flat sheets), 3 rolls of ribbon ($12), and....a whole bunch of Stitch Witchery hemming tape, like four or five rolls ($10). So...$248?  If I had used only the three curtains and half-size panels, it would have been $124.

The Stitch Witchery was a saga in and of itself.  I bought some at Walmart that was fabulous, used it all, then bought a different brand at Joann Fabrics that sucked, then went back to Walmart and bought six rolls of Ultra Super Extremely Sticky Hold which was not the same kind as the first fabulous kind and this one also sucked and I didn't like it but its what was in the house and I don't get all that much time to myself to make endless trips to Walmart and make curtains so I used it anyways.  I really need to learn to thread my sewing machine. This would have been alot easier if I could sew.

I'm happy with the end result, though, so it was worth it.

I found a china cabinet on craigslist, so hopefully this weekend this wall will be looking very different:

Have a nice weekend, everyone!