Isn't She Crafty: Curly Cue Valance

In my previous posting I showed a picture of my girls room in the process of being re-finished. There was a valance shown that I had made for her window. I am too excited about how cute it turned out to keep it all to myself, so I thought I would share it with you. Here is a better picture of it.

Here's the "How To"

What you'll need:

Board to hook all of this to

Several varieties of fabric

Stiff wire to use as the "Body" of the curls

Wire Snips

Drill

Hot Glue gun

1. You need to chose the fabric swatches you want to use. I went to the local fabric store and bought a bunch of fat quarters and cut several strips from those. I think I chose to have 10 different patterns. You can use as few or as many as you want. It will change the fullness of your valance, but it is a personal choice.

2. Once you have the fabric picked out, it needs to be cut so you can make fabric tubes. Now, I just cut out about 4.5" strips, but nothing was exact. Using your machine, turn the fabric inside out and sew on the open edges to create a tube. Cut the excess strings and turn the tube right side out.

3. Get a board to use as the base for this valance. I used some pressed wood that I had leftover from my wainscot wall we just built and measured it to fit above the window. I drilled several random holes all over the board. Spacing will be determined later, but for now, just use a drill bit that is approx. the size of the wire you will use as the "body" of the curls.

4. With the holes drilled and fabric tubes made, you are ready to begin putting it all together. Slide the fabric over the stiff wire (I cut the wires about 10"-12" long) and insert the wire into one of the drilled holes. Using your hot glue gun, put glue inside the hole and use the excess glue to hold the fabric edge to your board. Continue doing this until all of your fabric is wired and glued to the board and spaced out in a way that makes you happy.

5. By now it should look similar to this. A mess, right? Now, curl the strips in any direction you want. Curl it as tight or as loose as you want. This part is all in your hands.

6. Once your happy with the curls, you can hang the board above your window. I just used my trusty old nail gun again and got it hung. You can hang it however you need to. Once its up, tweak it until you think it looks perfect and make any other adjustments you feel necessary and then sit back, enjoy your creation. After all, no one else you know is likely to have made something so unique and cute.

(If this seems like a daunting task, we here at "Isn't she Crafty" would be happy to make it for you. Just email us at isntshecrafty@gmail.com)

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