Ittybit hasn't slept in her room since just about this time last year.

I blamed myself.

Every night since the night after that one, she's put on her pajamas, brushed her teeth and bunked down with her brother in his room.

She didn't want to be alone and the lights from cars and other sounds that invaded her mostly curtain-less room were too much to bear.

Of course that last part wasn't made clear to me until this past weekend when she had her first overnight guest, which, for space reasons, necessitated a return to her pink nightmare.

It was all arranged. She would sleep in her bed with her friend, and The Champ would sleep in his old toddler bed that's been providing overflow toy storage behind her dollhouse.

The only problem?

Putting some lids on the drafty old, light emitting windows.

Curtains can't be that difficult, I've told myself ... while perusing the linen aisles at Target. And yet a few yards at the fabric store will set me back nearly double the sale price of the pretty, glittery, purple stripy thing right there.

Don't forget the likelihood that any panels I make would be lopsided, jagged and generally more shabby than chic.

Still, I never flopped any bargain-bin draperies into my basket. Not when she only used the room to play. Ten bucks is ten bucks.

There must have been some divine intervention, though, because just the day before this dilemma, I'd stopped at a fabric store and bought some half-priced novelty flannel thinking I'd make pillowcases. Turns out the two yards of mermaids swimming in flowers I'd impulse purchased would almost (but not quite) exactly fit the two windows needing coverage.

So here it is ... vacation week's first craftacular project ...


JUST KEEP SWIMMING SHADES

WHAT YOU DO

* Measure your windows
* Get all excited that you have JUST ENOUGH material to barely cover the opening
* Then pretty much ignore what ever measurements and fold the fabric in half and cut. Repeat (vertically) for panels
* IGNORE the fact that none of the panels match width wise and REJOICE that you've somehow managed to make them the same length


WHAT TO AVOID
* HEMMING THE CURTAIN ROD SLEEVE FIRST
Thankfully ... Ittybit is skilled with the seam ripper.




BUT I DIGRESS...
* Pin and hem the edges of the pannels.
* Fold over the top edge about two inches, pin and sew straight across along lowest edge of the fold
* We then used white chainette fringe to finish (and lengthen) the bottom edges of the curtains. And, YES, I did happen to have some of this stuff just laying around (but I had to look up what this product was called because it had been graciously mailed to us with some other decorative odds and ends).



THAT'S IT.

Oh .. well, that, and since we have about a gazillion yards of organza from aforementioned material benefactor, Ittybit picked a color she though would look like cool water for the mermaids. We made a single panel for each window that we squished it in the middle of the rod -- a watery filling for the mermaid sandwich.



THAT WAS IT



All together, it took me about an hour and a half to complete the project but If you know what you're doing I'm guessing it will take about 20 minutes.

******

Now ... I bet you're wondering how well these curtains helped little cherubs sleep?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

The first-ever sleepover?

What human child has ever actually slept during a sleepover?