Possibly the best aspect of the whole farmhouse decor movement, is that it has brought inexpensive, practical items into the spotlight. Today I want to explore DIY drop cloth curtains. Drop cloths make a great neutral curtain all on their own without any funny business, but I wanted to put my own spin one them. In this post, I’ll show you how I used dye to take my drop cloth curtains up a notch.
Check out the video version here!
A Sad Curtain-less Room
If you checked out my DIY Curtain Rod post, this will be a bit repetitive, but our living room has been curtain-less since we moved in a year ago. Being country folk, we haven’t missed the privacy aspect of curtains. However, we were missing that cozy vibe that curtains bring. I also wanted to give this room a bit more color. I challenged myself to choose a color besides blue, since it’s always blue for me.
Dip Dye and Curtain Supplies
For The Curtains
One Large and In Charge Drop Cloth
Bucket
Rit Dye (Find Rit Dye Color Combinations HERE)
For the Tassels Baby
Yarn
Hot Glue
The Dip Dying Experiment
To begin my first ever dip dying experience, I mixed up my color following the Rit Dye Color Formula and directions provided on the dye bottle.
Using a scrap piece of drop cloth, I played around with mixing my dye colors. The Walmart I was shopping at for my dye, didn’t have a very good selection of color options. I had to grab the colors that were the closest to the color formula I had picked out for BURNT ORANGE. Yes burnt orange, because I was going to end my blue addiction right here with these curtains.
This is the life changing moment before I dyed my hands orange for an entire day. Awesome, but maybe grab some rubber gloves if you’re not committed to your color choice.
After your color is perfect, and you’ve dyed your hands to prove your commitment, dunk your drop cloth. I used a heavy container to keep my drop cloth curtain from floating out of the dye.
Darker Equals Longer
After about 15 minutes I went and tampered with my drop cloth curtain. I was so pleased with myself that the color was perfect! The big let down came after I had run my curtains through the wash.
When wet, the drop cloth will look way-hay darker than the color it will come out of the wash with. Now, I didn’t use any of Rit’s color stick product, but that is probably a good idea if you are going for darker colors.
The moral of the story is, distract yourself from messing with the soaking curtains for at least 30 minutes if you’re going for a dark rich color. The longer the better.
Bleach Is For Poor Choices
I tried to love my washed drop cloth color for a little bit, but I just couldn’t. I decided to give the curtains a soak in the tub with a bit of bleach, and I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. It’s not burnt orange, but we ended up with a really neutral orangey pink. Everyone is okay with it.
Tassel Time
Tassels are so easy to make, I think I might just have to add them onto everything. I used a piece of cardboard cut to the length I wanted my tassels to be. About six inches. Wrap the yarn around the cardboard as many times as you want. More wrapping equals thicker tassels.
Tie off the top of wrapped yarn with another single piece. Make sure the piece of yarn you knot around the top is long enough to add the beads to.
Cut the bottom of your wrapped yarn to release it from the cardboard. Then using a second single piece of yarn, tie a knot around the upper 1/3 of your tassel.
This is what you should end up with. I like to have a pair of chubby fingers on the table too for moral support.
We think tassels are so fun! Let the kids help make them for extra rustic looking tassels.
No Sew
When you’re done with your color experiment, and the DIY drop cloth curtains are washed, cut them into panels. Panel size will be based on the size of your window.
Fold the raw edges over twice. Iron over the fold to create a nice seam. Then, go back with fabric glue and glue the folds together. I like to use clothes pins to hold the seam down while the glue dries.
Put It All Together
Measure to create an even fold at the top of your drop cloth curtain panel. The fold may be large or small depending on the height of your ceiling and window.
Once there is a nice even fold to work with, use hot glue to attache the tassels to the back of the fold. This will hide the glue spot.
As an afterthought, I went back and added some wooden beads to my tassels. You may need a large needle to help with this process. I found my wooden beads a Michaels, but there are many options online as well.
These are the beads I ended up using.
Hang And Enjoy Your Curtains
The finale of this project comes when you get to easily hang your DIY drop cloth curtains up with these curtain clips . There are several ways you can use these clips to get the pleated look, but I just went for the basic route.
After a dip dying, tasseling making, orange hand adventure, we had our nice warm pop of color and style our living room needed. I don’t know if I will ever have a curtain again that is not made from a drop cloth. It’s just too easy and cheap, but turns out looking fabulous. You can even choose to use heavier weighted drop cloths for a room darkening effect.
Enjoy!
