Cheap blinds

We were in need of blinds for the girls' rooms to block out the light during nap time and to block the super bright yard lights of some of our neighbors. But we are also on a super budget due to the whole owning two houses issue so what is a girl to do? Well after she spends a few trips drooling over the cellular blinds at the store that would cost over a hundred buckeroos for just the three most important windows, she wanders around and stumbles upon window magic.

I did not know these things existed but they make temporary paper blinds that you can just cut to size and stick up in your window. We paid less than $15 to cover our three windows and they look so much better from the outside. It's all about the curb appeal baby! I found them at Lowes but I'm sure they have them everywhere they sell blinds. Maybe.

It took maybe five minutes per window to cut them down to size and then stick them up. They come with double stick tape on one side but this one fell down after about a week so I also stuck tacks in there to hold a little better. I think the overzealous application of texture in this house contributed to it falling down but I would still consider tack or staples wherever you are putting these just so you don't have to think about them again.

They also came with two small white clips that you use to hold the shades up if you want that delightful sunlight in your room. It takes a little longer to gather up the folds than just pulling a string but it doesn't bother me at all, especially as a temporary solution. I think if we were to live in this house for a long time we would eventually replace these shades with something nicer but we both know that this house isn't going to be our forever home so we are willing to live with some less expensive options here and there.

You can't tell from outside that these are made of paper and they block a lot of light. They also had white ones that just diffuse the light and they had black ones that block all light but I didn't think that black would look great from the street and the gray looks really nice. Someday I'll get the goo gone out and take off those window stickers but they are on every window and it's just such a project that I can't make myself do it. I have a recipe pinned for a homemade goo gone with coconut oil that I want to try because I despise the smell and feel of goo gone. Maybe if I get around to making that, I'll get excited about peeling off stickers and not be so annoyed at the person who SHOULD have peeled them off months ago when the windows were installed when it would have been easy.

What's your favorite hardware store discovery? Because this is at the top of my list right now. I love finding a solution that works for me and it so much less costly than what I thought was my only option! Did you notice that I'm using sheets as curtains and I didn't bother to hem them yet? I'll tell you all about that sometime.