Boys' Room: the Drapes

My do-it-yourself experiences working on this room have been varied, but more often than not, I would not hesitate to use the word "disaster" when describing the difference between the vision in my head and what actually happened.  Thankfully the drapes look awesome, BUT they did not come without their challenges.  Here's the story of how they came to be:
The baby-theme to this room was nautical, a sort of navy blue/light blue/white sailboat thing.  I loved it.  When we moved on to big-boy-land, and the black/white thing came to be, I knew the navy blue drapes had to go.  I didn't really want to spend a fortune on new drapes, but I am not a huge fan of the cheapy standard-style drapes out there in stores like Target.  I really wanted drapes with grommets, but I couldn't find black ones anywhere.  In the end, the $12.99 pricetag for black black-out curtains won me over and I figured for that price, I could embellish.  If you have kids, you NEED black-out curtains - take my word for it.  It buys you hours and hours of extra sleep for a small price.  Anyway, these standard curtains were the kind that sort of gather as the rod goes through them.  They were supposedly the same length as the drapes that were already hanging in their room. 
I went to the fabric store and picked up some fairly standard canvas fabric in both bright blue and lime green for quite the deal and grabbed some white grossgrain ribbon for a little something extra.  I sewed stripes on the drape panels and then covered the seam where the blue and green meet with a stripe of white ribbon.  I was IN LOVE, the whole thing took me about 3 hours and I could not wait to hang them.  The next morning, I went to hang the first panel and realized they were too short!  No!  I would not fail.  I loved them too much.  So I wracked my brain for a solution.  Sew an extra panel on the bottom maybe?  Then I had it: sew tabs on the tops!  I liked that style of curtain better anyway!  The thought of sewing the tabs (sleeve-style) did not excite me but I had the great idea to get some wide black grossgrain ribbon and use that.  It turned out to be a brilliant $3.49 fix.  In one hour I was able to sew 8 tabs on each curtain (that was how many I could get out of the spool of ribbon I bought) which was the perfect amount, I hung the curtains and voila! Perfect look, perfect length.

I like how the curtains tie the colors of the room together a little bit more.  We are getting closer...I only have one more project to do: paint the little bookcase green.  I have saved this for last because I am the most nervous about the outcome.  Stay tuned...I'm not sure how long it will take me...