DIY Roman Shade for Any Window

A little fabric can add a nice layer and so much warmth to any room! So here’s how to easily create your own DIY Roman shade to fit any window in your home.

What to Buy

When we first moved into our house, I wasn’t ready to decorate our primary bathroom or make it over. But we still needed privacy! So I bought the cheapest mini blinds and hung them up.

But after adding wallpaper and really gussying up the joint a few months ago, it was time to jazz up our mini blinds too!

I’ve made this several times before for different rooms and just love how simple it is! And you can’t beat a custom, functional DIY Roman shade for less than $50!

Hem Fabric Panel

The fabric portion of this shade is just a simple square hemmed on 3 sides-right, left, and bottom. You can create the hems with a sewing machine or use the no-sew hem tape as demonstrated in the video above. After measuring your window you’ll want to add 2 and 1/2 inches to the width and height. This allows for a 1/2 inch seam allowance and a little extra so the flowy fabric will still fill up your window.

Prep Mini Blinds

In order to get the mini blinds ready to reuse for your DIY Roman shade, you’ll need to spread them out on a tabletop. Depending on your model, you may need to clamp to the table to keep them open.

Then your goal is to remove all the slats except for 1 or 2, depending on the height of your window. And you’ll want to remove the extra strings.

BUT there are 2 strings that are imperative to the function of your shade. They are a thicker cord that goes inside the bottom rail of the blinds. The thinner strings that look like a ladder are not necessary and should be removed.

Watch video above to see a good visual of what I’m talking about!

My window is about 36 inches tall. And I only ended up needing 1 of the blind slats. So if yours is greater than 40 inches tall, plan on keeping 2 of the slats. The remaining slats can be torn or cut off, just be careful of the important cord that raises and lowers the blinds/your new shade!

Glue DIY Roman Shade

After your fabric panel is hemmed and your blinds are prepped, you’re ready to glue them together. You’ll want to play around with the location of your slats so that your shade will gather nicely when it’s in the raised position. The bottom rail determines the extra fabric flap at the bottom when it’s raised. I wanted mine to be seen so it is layered when up.

So I glued the bottom rail 10 inches from the bottom of my fabric panel. Then the slat in the middle was glued 20 inches from the bottom. Lastly, the top rail is glued at the height of my window. After the glue dries, the extra fabric (that’s not hemmed) at the top can be tucked in or trimmed. (Again watch the video above to see this in action.)

Once your glue is dry, you’re ready to hang your beautiful custom DIY Roman shade and really make your window pop!