Painted Curtain Project

I figured almost 2 years later, I should upgrade our curtain situation in the front room(a table cloth for awhile, then bed sheet, lol). I've been drooling over the clean geometric patterned curtains, but they're so expensive -$70 and up! So I thought I'd take a shot at painting my own.

I got this plain white pair on sale from Target for $15.29

I went Googling and loved what I saw from Cuttingedgestencils.com. Here's a few favorites.

I fell in love with "Fuji" above. But even to DIY curtains, this stencil costs $39.95 plus S&H. Still out of my budget. I did the next best thing- cut my own! (yes I am crazy)  I print screened the pic above and printed it out. Using a plastic folder from Dollar Tree, I traced and then cut out the design with an exacto knife. 

45 min later, a few slips of the knife, and vowing never to make my own stencil again, I had my $1 version :) The original plan was to use acrylic paint, a fabric painting medium, and roller to apply paint to the curtains (2 parts paint to 1 part medium). But... unfortunately the result was too gloppy and thick for my taste. I even got some runs where I guess the roller had too much water in it and the paint bled under the stencil.

eek. Lol, yeah... Plan B: I tried a fabric pen. I used a medium point silver Sharpie Paint pen with an oil base. Oil is better than water based for fabrics.

Muuuuuch nicer! Then I painted... and painted... and painted for days. It took 2-3 paint pens for one panel. It took 4 stencils to do a row on my curtains. And at 35 minutes a row, I finished in around 6 hours, lol. Thank goodness DIY doesn't count labor :) or this would be the most expensive thing in my living room.

Final verdict- love it! Well almost, the only part that bugs me is when the light really shines through you can see the pen marks in the fabric-

Not my proudest knock off project ever, but it does the job, and has a great effect on the over all look of the room. Just don't look too close :) My opinion on painting curtains- I wouldn't do it again. The paint technique is ok but when light shines through you can really see the heaviness of the paint, and any color looks more gray/black because it's a solid applied to a sheer material. Paint pens worked MUCH better for me, but again, in the strong light you can see the difference in thin and thick paint. 

I have a feeling these curtains will grow on me. Off to the next thing!

-Alyssa