I've been searching for the right curtains for the nursery for months now, and I just couldn't find anything I liked. I was going for a wide green stripe or chevron pattern; something statement-making and not too busy. My second option was to attempt to make no-sew curtains, since I can't sew/don't have a sewing machine. But unfortunately I just couldn't find any fabric at our local fabric store that really jumped out at me, and it is hard to tell exact coloring online, which made me hesitant to try to order some. I was about to give up and just get some solid green curtains at Target, when I came across a tutorial on painting curtains.
I found plain white curtain panels at Target for $10 each, plus I had a coupon for half off one panel. At $15 total, I figured I wouldn't be out too much money if the project totally flopped, so I decided to go for it!
First, I washed, dried, and ironed the curtains. Then I painstakingly taped off my stripes with regular painters tape that I had on hand. I wanted wide stripes, and my curtain panels are 84" long, so I taped off twelve 7" stripes (6 green and 6 white). This was the most tedious part of the process because I had to get the lines straight. I did the best I could, but the bottom stripe on both panels ended up a tiny bit slanted. You really can't tell though when they are hung.
Then it was painting time! I put down a plastic drop cloth (very important, the paint bleeds through the fabric), taped my panels to it so they would not slide around, and got to painting with a small foam roller. I used a quart of regular flat paint from Lowe's mixed with some fabric medium from the craft store. The fabric medium supposedly allows you to wash the curtains later without the paint running, but I'm not sure I will ever try that. The instructions on the fabric medium said to mix it with paint 2:1, so since a quart is 30 ounces, I would have had to use 15 ounces (almost 8 bottles) of the medium, and I was scared it would dilute the paint too much, so I only used about half of the recommended amount.
The fabric really soaks up the paint, so I did two coats, using about 3/4 of the quart. Then I immediately took the tape off before the second coat had time to try so that it wouldn't pull any paint up with it. And voila! Crisp green stripes. I really like them.
Here were my few small issues in case anybody tries to do this based off my experience. I think I got a little sloppy when doing the second coat on the second panel, because the paint didn't go on quite as smooth as I had hoped, and you could tell. So I took a foam brush and put some touch up paint on the thin spots instead of doing a third coat over each stripe. Well, the touch up paint dried differently, so if you look hard, you can faintly tell where I applied touch up paint. I think the solution would be to just roll an entire third coat on that panel, but it is not very noticeable and I don't want to, so I think I'm just going to live with it.
There are still a few little areas where you can tell the paint isn't quite even when the light shines through it. But since I am not using these to block light (there's a shade on the window for that purpose), I don't think it will really matter. However, I would not use painted curtains on any window that didn't already have a privacy/light blocking treatment on it for this reason.
My last issue is that the painted stripes are kind of stiff and "crunchy." This might have been remedied had I used all of the fabric medium, and you can apparently also lightly sand the painted areas to make them softer if this bothers you. I don't really care all that much.
Overall, I am very happy with my custom curtains! They are the exact color and pattern that I wanted, and they only ended up costing about $40 total, which is pretty good for curtains. The ironing and taping process took me a couple of hours, and the painting took another hour or two, plus drying time. I think they really add a fun color punch to the room, and I can't wait to add the finishing touches.
