Tape Measure Black Out Drapery Panels

We got very lucky that most of our window treatments could be reused at our new house. Obviously, most of our windows have blinds on them too so the rest is mainly for decoration.... except in Little Man's room. On a daily basis, he fluctuates between wanting the room bright (as in all the lights on) to wanting it very, super dark. As you can imagine, blinds don't really cater to the latter request during nap times. We bought navy black out panels from Pottery Barn Kids for his old room that I would have loved to use except they were too short and not wide enough to cover his window! So while we figured out what in the world to do, this is what his window looked like....

The navy black out panels with a dark colored king size flat sheet hanging behind it. 

Yeah, its not pretty but it got the job done!

I knew that we really needed to get black out panels but they are crazy expensive! I thought about making them myself and even went to the fabric store to pick out the material. Unfortunately, I took the kids with me and Little Man wanted to no part of the fabric selections I was making. While I was out on a Saturday (kid-free) I popped into our local Hancock Fabric and started searching.... nothing seemed quite right and I was wavering on the color. Little Man's room was lots of colors going on: navy beds, gray quilts, red pillows, white/chocolate star sheets or multi colored PB construction sheets.... so I wanted something to work with all of these and I was having no luck making a decision. As I was walking out of the store, I saw some sale draperies. They happened to have the right length (96 inch) and the right price ($13 per panel) so I started digging. I came up with 2 chocolate silk looking panels that are fully lined in a heavy white fabric. Not quite black out but with the dark brown on the reverse it looked like it would work.

I came home and wasn't thrilled. The material was just to stuffy old dressy for a kid's room. But after taking the panels out and putting them up, it occurred to me that I could easily use the reverse side. These were excellent quality panels and it really did look like they were made to be white drapes with chocolate trim. And it gets even better, I was using my old yellow plastic tape measure to check their length when I realized that this would make a simply adorable trim for these curtains!

And of course, Etsy came to my rescue! I found this adorable Measuring Tape Trim and couldn't order it fast enough! For real, is this cute or what?

Measuring Tape Trim

I grabbed the hot glue gun and got to work!

I love it and I love that it took me about 5 minutes total!

Here is what they look like hanging! So much better than the before!

Are you dying to see the rest of the room? Well, I am working on a house tour where you can see the full room shots and hope to get started on that next week.

Linking up @ Serenity Now!