Hello Bella!

What light through yonder window breaks?  It's happy yellow window treatments, obviously!

So our dining room drapes.  A little stodgy.  Not much fun.  You know what *is* fun?  Window treatments from Crate and Barrel.

It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiney day!

The Bella Porte 96" drapes in Citrine.  And for a paltry $140 per panel, they were mine!!

Kidding, kidding.  We'd need to buy four panels.  $560 on drapes before taxes?  I think not.

But sheesh, I love the look of these drapes.  And I can't help but think they would look so bright and soft and modern and fun(!) without assaulting your eyeballs with color or overpowering the country-chic vibe going on in that dining room.  I wondered if I could find similar fabric; you know, maybe try to make them myself (read: with lots of my mom's help).  I turned to any internet savvy person's best friend: the google.  And what do you know, I found the fabric!

Dwell Studio's Bella Porte in Citrine.

This Bella doesn't constantly bite its lip.

Good news:  I found it!
Bad news: It's designer fabric.  $$$

I considered some other geometric prints in a similar shade of golden mustard yellow, but didn't find anything I liked near as well as this fabric.  So I decided to just stick with the program and try to get the fabric I really loved at the smallest possible cost.  The best deal I found was from Fabric.com, and even then it was listed as $18.98 per yard.  Not exactly budget-friendly, considering I'd need 11ish yards (12ish if I wanted to leave wiggle room for boo-boos or have leftover fabric for pillow covers or the like).  And try as I might, I couldn't find any coupons online.  Just purchasing the fabric would end up being about $230 before tax!  Still cheaper than Crate and Barrel, but not cheap enough to spring for it. 

So in the meantime I signed up for Fabric.com's email list, hoping for an amazing coupon.  I also visited Crate and Barrel to see the drapes in person.  My aim was to make sure I loved them as much in person as I did in my head, and to see what their construction was like- thinking that if I was going to make two sets of these curtain panels, I'd want them to look as Crate & Barrel-ish as possible.  Yeah, I loved them in person.  And yeah, they looked pretty easy to make.  Too easy to pay five hundred sixty ever-loving dollars for, that's for certain.  

After nearly a month of watching for an email coupon, I got the one I was waiting for.

Twenty-five percent off purchases of $150 or more.  That's me, baby!  I went ahead and pulled the trigger.  That coupon knocked almost $60 off my total!  $185 for four 96" curtain panels I can do.  It's still a smidge over $46 per panel, which makes me cringe a little if I think about it too hard, but sometimes when you are totally in love, the money is worth it.

That means that I am saving about $445 (before tax) to make these babies rather than buy them.  Ahhh, that eases my guilt a little.

The fabric arrived yesterday and I love it more in person.  As if that was possible.  I can't wait to start working on these drapes!  Oh wait, there's a paint can with my name on it out in the garage.  I guess I'll wait to start working on the drapes until after I'm done painting trim outside!