Monday, September 10, 2012

How to make pleated drapes from tab-top

Tab Top After

Have I mentioned that I challenged myself to reuse what I already had as much as I could for the nursery? The drapes are no exception…

We bought I think 15 packages of the tab top pairs of drapes from Ikea last fall to create fabric walls in our basement to separate the storage from the indoor play area for Reed. I don’t love tab top, but the non-tab were double the price and we needed soooooo many of them, I had to keep reminding myself this was for the basement…They were seriously $19.99 for the pair, which really shocks me since the cotton has such a nice weight to it…but that’s why we love Ikea, right? We took them all with us when we moved so I decided I would at use 2 of them in the nursery but upgrade them a bit so they were more custom.
So step 1, making the tab-tops go away. I have heard of people just cutting them off, but I just wasn’t sure about that. So, I thought why couldn’t I just “stitch-witchery” the tabs backwards and then insert the rod behind the drape instead of through the tabs on top. It worked beautifully!!!

Tab Top Before

First I laid the drape out on the ironing board with the tabs up.

Step 1

Iron all the tabs to the back on the panel to just flatten out

Iron down

The only supplies needed are:
Stitch Witchery
Sissors
Hot Iron

Cut the piece of the adhesive to the width of the tab and place underneath at the bottom of the tab, iron until glued.
Step2

See how only the bottom of the tab is affixed? You can still put the curtain rod through.
bottom of tabs copy

Next, I will be embellishing them a bit to give them a custom look., stay tuned!

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6 comments:

  1. Nice change. Now I may not mind buying tab tops knowing I can easily change them.

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  2. So smart and clever! I'll be filing this idea away for sure. Thanks for sharing!

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  3. Will definitely be using this trick for our guest bedroom. Thanks! : )

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  4. Brilliant! And they look great too! I'm not wild about tab tops either but you have solved that!

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  5. cute. I just bought some that I plan to stencil with paint and I love how you made them pleated. I'm definitely going to do that because the tabs just scream cheap. came over from findingfabulous and I'm now a new follower

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  6. fantastic! I am looking at the same curtains but do not like the tab tops. Thank you...I will do this!

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