Experiments in Window Treatments, Part I

Hmm.  Well our little venture in DIY home improvement meets crafting went OK.  About a month ago, husband and I decided we would try to make our own paper window shades a la Apartment Therapy.  In the instructions over at AT, they DO say, “You need rice paper sold by the yard on a roll.”  True, that.  However, I was reticent to order rice paper online without being able to touch and see it.  So, we headed to Paper Source, and fell in love with this chiyogamish paper that matches our green color on the bedroom walls.

EXHIBIT A

The only problem is that said paper is not sold by the roll, but instead in 25 1/2″ x 19″ half-sheets.  Hmm.  No worries, we thought…we’ll bind them together.

Approximately an hour of trimming and experimenting with different adhesives later (finally decided scrapbooking tape was the way to go!) we got this:

We gave up on matching the pattern and just made sure the center seam (where we had to join the panels of paper) matched all the way down. Then came the easy part…affixing it to the roller mechanism.  We ordered ours here and cut them to size.

Success, almost!  In all honesty, rolling them up is just slightly wonky and requires that you keep a close eye on the roller to make sure the paper stays aligned.  Below is sort of an eerie photo of the finished shade with the sun beating through.  We were surprised at how much heat it actually did block!!  I’ll post a picture of the shade without light shining through it so you can see that too.

I’m very much hoping that I can order the same paper directly from Paper Source without the precut.  We had to use six panels, whereas using rice paper by the yard would have saved at least an hour’s worth of time.

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