Designing a calming environment

About Me

Designing a calming environment

I run a counselling service, so a lot of our customers come in feeling stressed and out of sorts. We have found that having the interior designer come through and update the furnishing has made a lot of difference to the customers and staff of our centre. I think interior design often overlooked, so I thought it might be useful to start a blog to show how the different elements have added up to create a really calming and nurturing environment. It should be useful for anyone who wants to have a more calming atmosphere in their office, school or home.

 

Help your children make their own roller blinds for their cubby

2 August 2016
 Categories: , Blog

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Children like to have some sense of ownership, which can be fostered by encouraging them to become involved in decorating their cubby in a way that means something to them. Help your children to make their own indoor roller blinds for their cubby.

Help your children to measure the windows in the cubby

Show your children how to work with a tape measure. Stay with them, but let them do the work of measuring the height and width of the windows in their cubby. Ask them to writ the measurements down.

Guide your children to work out the amount of fabric you will need

Explain to your children that blinds need to be 3cm longer and wider than the windows, to make sure that they will cover the windows properly. Use a diagram to demonstrate that you will need a piece of fabric for each window that is 3cm wider than the measurements of the window, plus at least 3cm wider all around to allow for a hem.

Guide your children to work out how much fabric will be needed to make the blinds, with lining, for all the windows in the cubby.

Take your children to buy the fabric

Go with your children to the shops to buy the fabric, but allow them the freedom to choose the pattern they want. You can teach them that fabrics come in standard widths and to work out how they will cut out the pieces they need from that width.

Allow your children to help you to cut the pieces of fabric at home

Work with your children to cut out the pieces of fabric needed for the blinds for the windows in the cubby. Do not allow them to actually cut the fabric, but make sure that they do as much of the laying out as possible.

Make the blinds.

When you have the fabric cut out, place the right side of the patterned fabric against the right side of the lining and sew the blinds together. Leave a gap at the top and bottom edge of each side of the blind.

Allow your children to thread a dowel rod through the top and the bottom of each blind.

Attach a small piece of string to the top dowel rod.

Fit the blinds in the cubby

Attach the blinds along the top of each window with double sided Velcro.

Show your children how to roll up their blinds and to tie them in place with the string.