Hand Painted Curtains for the RV

After hours upon hours of painting I have finished two very large curtain panels for the RV!!  I have really enjoyed painting them so I decided to show you the steps involved and materials used in order to paint and design your very own curtains if you so choose.

Step One: Bleached 100% cotton seems to work really well for painting with fabric paint. I have also tried unbleached cotton but didn't like it as much.  The colours seem to pop a little more on the white material.  I had envisioned a picture of a sheet all nicely folded but lets get real, I am staying in an RV with three kids so nothing is really folded.  It's best to pre-wash and iron your material before starting.

The scrunched up blank canvas

Step two: Draw out your design or picture that you would like on the curtain.  You can pre-draw this out and pre-plan your colour scheme as well.  I have found for the kind of designs that I am doing I prefer to wing it.  I use a black sharpie fabric paint pen.  There are other paint pens out there, but I just really love the sharpies.  They have a nice edge to them and don't bleed.  I also will use coloured fabric paint pens for smaller areas.  I have found using a paint pen on larger areas begins to look a bit streaky and will burn out your pen really quickly.

Sharpie Fabric stained paint pens

Step Three: Once the design is fully drawn out I begin to paint.  It's kind of like colouring in a colouring book!  Be sure to stay in the lines.  I usually have a colour scheme in mind before I begin.  This one I used lots of colour but mainly the primary and secondary colours.  I wanted it really colourful because the RV is completely white.  So when you are selecting paint for your fabric it is good to have fabric paint.  I have not found any really great paint here in Canada but recommend a fabric paint from South Africa called Magic Moments.  However, that may be more work than what you are willing to do because you have to order it and have it shipped.  So you can also use screen ink for fabric.  You will also need to purchase a reducer to thin it out a bit!  I don't recommend water as it will cause your paint to bleed and run all over the material. So I use tons of reducer because I like to blend the paint.  If you are blending colours it is always best to first apply the lightest colour and then blend the darker colour into it.  Otherwise it will be very streaky!

Step Four: Use good firm brushes.  I find a soft brush doesn't allow you to really do a scrubbing motion that you need to do to work the paint into the fabric.  It took me a little to get used to this because I find when I use acrylics I prefer a different brush all together.  If you don't work the paint into the fabric you will notice that parts of fabric come through and this will especially show up in the light.

Step Five: After I have painted my fabric I go over the whole thing again with my black sharpie fabric paint pen.  It makes it pop even more and overs up any areas where paint may have been on the lines.

Step Six: It is important to heat set your paint.  So give it a day or two to dry and then iron the back of the curtain.  You will need to apply heat to one area for a few minutes.  After doing this I would still wait a few day's before washing.  If you can, it is best to hand wash but if you are washing in a machine use a gentle cycle.  I have had it happen before where I didn't heat set my fabric good enough and when I pulled my fabric out of the machine there wasn't much left to what I had painted!

And there you have it!  Custom painted curtains!  One of a kind and Funtastical!  These are going to fit in the RV just GREAT!  If you have any questions feel free to contact me.  Happy painting!

The next project matching pillow cases