Monogramed Shade

As you remember I declared the Library at Miss Janice's house completed last week. (You can see the full project here.)


We were both happy with the changes we made on the curtains. I made these curtains for her in early 2003 and they fit her room at the time, but with the new floor and all the changes...I felt a little more sophistication was in order.

We were thrilled when we found these black and white curtains lying in a heap at a local flea market event. We didn't buy them immediately though. Emily initially purchased one for her new place and Miss Janice seemed a little unsure of them for her room. When we made a trip to the house to unload our stuff and held Emily's curtain up to the window, we immediately returned and purchased the other five we'd left behind.

I really liked how they dressed up her library but continued to feel something was lacking. I knew for sure I wanted to cover up the rod in some way. (That thought is still rolling around in my brain. I have some ideas I'd like to "pitch" to Miss Janice on that topic.) However, while reading Kari & Kijsa's blog they had a treatment on a shade that I thought would be perfect for the old pull down shades that were currently on the windows. (You can see the inspiration here on their blog.)


We went to Hancock's on Saturday to look at the various trims and settled on the two different ribbons for the edge of the shade. Miss Janice was "tasked" with fusing the two ribbons together...but she ended up having to glue the ribbon set to the shade.

She liked the contrast of the two different ribbons with the curtains. However...I still wanted to take the shades "up a notch"!

Still thinking of Kari and Kijsa's shade with the initial...I found a really pretty H on the Internet and traced it onto the middle of the shade and painted the design with acrylic paints. (This was after printing it onto fabric and trying to iron the cut out onto the shade! Didn't work, so plan B was to trace and paint.)

I loved the look of the H and Miss Janice was over the top about it's look and style. (By the way...her last name does begin with H. I know the inspiration shade had an H on it also.)

Once the paint dried we hung the shades back up and admired the work we'd put in on them!

Here is the "after" picture (compare it to the two at the beginning of the blog.) I think it looks beautiful with the curtains and the ribbon trim.

Still thinking through my thoughts regarding hiding the rod portion in the middle. We also purchased a tassel for the pull and she'll affix them with some of her vintage buttons. All in all I think the project turned out beautifully (although it will continue to be a work in progress.)

Thank you to Kari & Kijsa for your inspirational blog!

I'll keep you posted about what I'll do about that "naked" center piece of the rod showing!!!

debi