DIY Blackout Curtains

So it turns out that babies need a lot of sleep! Even on an overcast sort of day like today our dark blue curtains prove woefully inadequate to the task of a dark room during the day, early evening or early morning. Since I'm on maternity leave and super skint I decided that proper blackout blinds were going to be too expensive for just the 3 or 4 months that our little one is in our room (her windows are a different size so we'll think about those later). Cue the DIY project :) So, with some blackout material, some sew & stick velcro and some yellow satin ribbon and we fashioned ourselves some child safe blackout blinds. Below are some before and after pictures, on a sunny day the difference would be even more marked.

What they looked like rolled up...

Nan very kindly sewed the soft side of the velcro to the blackout material at the sewing machine.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We left a lip of material at the top and bottom to prevent light leak so the only place it gets in are where the velcro is stitched in. If we had bigger borders on our windows (more space to stick the velcro higher up) there would have been no leak at all.


The ribbon is purposefully not stitched on so we can change colour or position if we fancy it.
   

So what do you think?

Introducing Little L

How time flies. It seems like only yesterday that I was bored out of my brain and laying around like a bloated whale waiting to give birth. At 10 days late little L had grown to a hefty 3.87kg (8.5lb)! We're 3 months later and I've finally got around to using my laptop for more than the occasional bill payment. I'd have been much more regular with the blogposts if the blogger app for my phone wasn't so abjectly awful. Here she is in all her tiny glory and we love her more and more with each passing day.

     

thanks to Mike, who took most, if not all of the photos.