Make your own ball fringe curtains

I found the coolest curtains at my favorite store, Anthropologie. But of course…once I added up costs, it would have been over $500 for four panels — which, although I’m in love, seems a bit high for a baby’s room, even to me.

So I thought I’d give making my own a try. I found some great ball fringe online, some Muslin at Hobby Lobby, and I got started. I think the curtains turned out pretty cute — I mean, granted, the Anthropologie curtains would have been absolutely beautiful, but this is a great option and only cost me $40.

What you will need:

• Fabric
• Ball fringe
• Sewing machine and needle and thread

First make (or buy) white curtains in whatever length works for your house. If I had to do again, I’d probably buy the white curtains with grommets from Target or Ikea — just to give them a little more substance.  But the muslin curtains I made were quick and very reasonable. I also had decided that since we have wood blinds anyways, I didn’t need my curtains to be light blocking.

I decided to space my ball fringe about a foot apart the whole way up the curtain. For the first strand, I measured 12 inches from the bottom of the curtain and then used my needle and white thread to pierce through the end of the ball fringe at the edge of the curtain. I tacked it down about four times and then cut the thread off on the back of the curtain. I tied off the thread on the back and then re-tied the knot on the end of the thread. Then I measured 12 inches from the middle of the bottom of the curtain and tacked the middle of the ball fringe line to where I measured. Again, I just tacked four times and cut off and tied down. And then I strung to the end of the curtain width and tacked down again at 12 inches. I looped the ball fringe back around and doubled it up by re-tacking it where I already had in the middle and on left side. So when I was finished, I had a double line of ball fringe at the 12 inch mark. Now, you can definitely tack the fringe more than just three times per width — I just wanted mine to have a draped look.

I cut off my fringe and started a new line of ball fringe another 12 inches up from the first line. And on and on. The way my measurements worked out is I had six lines of ball fringe per curtain — but again, measure yours however you’d like.

This was a great project that didn’t take too terribly long and got me the look I was after without the investment. I think they’re really sweet — and very original.