Painting Stripes Tutorial

Hi all! I'm going to be doing a tutorial on how to paint your curtains or fabric. I will be walking through it step by step and telling you some tips and tricks. 

First off select your curtain or fabric. We bought 3 2pks of Ritva Curtains from Ikea. They were 24.99ea. 

Then select your color choice(s) of paint. We chose Behr's Brown TeePee and Soulful Music paint colors. I decided to use flat paint. I didn't want them to have any sheen when the light hit them. To complete these curtains we bought a gallon and a quart of each color. We only needed a gallon.

Brown TeePee

Soulful Music

These next two steps lack pictures so you're going to have to imagine this:

Lay out your fabric/curtains on the floor or large surface area. Make sure for best results that they are washed and ironed(I didn't and the tape didn't adhere well). 

Choose how wide you want your stripes to be. We made all of ours 12in. So using a rotary mat I measured out 12in up and down each side of the curtain.  There were little ticks marks on the edges of the curtain to indicated where we would be taping.

Take your tape(use edge lock tape) and line it up with the first tick mark on one side of the fabric. Then carefully unroll the tape and "connect" it with the first tick mark on the opposite side of the curtain, creating a straight line of tape. Repeat this for each measurement.  You might want to enlist someone to help you as making these lines of tape could be difficult by yourself. 

Now this next step is optional. But for us it was easier seeing as we live in a small place and floor space wasn't available. Tack drop cloths to a wall using tacking nails. This is to protect your walls from paint seepage. Also if you're going to be laying these on the floor to paint, lay out a drop cloth there. 

If you're like me and you're pretty short recruit your hubby or family member to hang up said drop cloth and curtains.

On our wall we could fit two of these panels. Each one measured 57x98". They are longer and wider than your average curtain. Remember once these are hanging they may appear to droop because of the weight of the fabric and tape. And they will droop a little more because of the added weight of the paint. Don't get discouraged, just keep on keeping on.

Also if your significant other, or friend is helping out, you may be getting these looks a lot. Don't forget to do something nice for them as a way to say thank you. 

It's always good to lighten up the mood. Document your project so that you can look back and remember these times.

And here are some of the panels partially finished. 

Once dry remove from the wall and tear the tape off to reveal your masterpiece!! Then hang up to admire your hard work and ambition. It always feels good to complete a project like this. Especially knowing that it doesn't cost a lot.