DIY newspaper tube blinds

Newspaper is a very universal thing. You can make many things from it, including blinds. It is cheap and accessible, and the material is easy to process. At the same time, it can be given a beautiful appearance, for example, by painting it with paint.

Preparing newspaper tubes for blinds

To begin with, newspaper tubes are made. We take a sheet of newspaper, tear it lengthwise into 3 parts and wind it onto a knitting needle. For everything to work out correctly, the knitting needle must be placed on the edge, as shown in the photo, and then twisted.

If the leaf is large, the tube will be thicker. Therefore, if we need tonics, they can be trimmed. The length of the tubes is also important. Therefore, you should choose a wide newspaper. And the last important parameter is the number of tubes. For example, for a window 40 cm wide and 90 cm high, we need about 170 tubes.

Important! When rolling the newspaper, you need to drop a drop of glue onto the tip of the newspaper to prevent the tube from unraveling.

How to properly fasten the structure?

To create blinds, we will need the following items:

1. Newspaper tubes.
2. Ropes.
3. Metal hinges.
4. Scissors.
5. Pencil for marking.
6. Plank.
7. Metal hinges.

We fasten the structure as follows:

1. We make a weaving line. To do this, draw a line on the tubes along which weaving will be done.
2. We braid each tube with rope. The rings are made dense (it is desirable that they adjoin each other).You can make two ropes as in standard blinds (left and right), or you can only have one in the center.
3. After braiding the last tube, now we need to weave it in the opposite direction. The result should be two parallel lines.

Now we need to attach the blinds:

1. We take the bar. Metal loops are screwed to its ends.
2. The third loop should be attached in the center of the bar. The latter is glued to the newspaper product.
3. During use, newspaper tubes may begin to bend. To avoid this, we need additional braiding with rope. This time we braid three tubes at a time. The rope must be twisted several times around each group of tubes.
4. Now we need to pass another rope through the hole in the center loop. It is necessary for lowering and raising the blinds. The length of the rope is equal to the length of the product, but a few extra centimeters are needed.
5. A lock is placed at the end of the rope to prevent it from coming out of the loop.
6. And the last step is to attach the strip to the window frame.

The blinds are ready. You can use it.

What can you paint with?

If you need to paint the product, it is better to use acrylic paint. It has a water-repellent property, which is very appropriate for newspapers (if they get wet, the newspaper begins to swell and defects will appear on the product). It is recommended to first coat each tube with varnish and then fasten the structure together. Special paint for wood is also suitable. It is designed for a material that is also damaged by water, so its function is also water-repellent. You can also coat the tubes with water-repellent varnish. Another good idea is to stick colored paper on them.

Paper can also be colored with coffee, watercolors and food coloring.

The process of creating blinds from tubes cannot be called complicated. But it is tedious and time consuming. The reason is that each tube needs to be twisted, dyed and braided separately. It is unlikely that you will be able to do all the work in one day. But the product will turn out to be very interesting, since the tubes resemble bamboo in appearance.