Rain on a Tin Roof

Tag: fabric

Cheap Fabric by the Yard: Discount Upholstery Fabric under $15 a Yard

Upholstery and drapery fabric can be pretty pricey. Here though, you’ll find over 50 options of cheap fabric by the yard that isn’t pricey. It’s all under $15 a yard! Plus, find out where to find the best discounted prices for cheap upholstery fabric online.

In the last month or so, I have scoured online fabric stores looking for the perfect upholstery material for projects in my office and upcoming projects at the farm. Usually, I end up finding the perfect fabrics, but not at the perfect prices.

Champagne taste on a beer budget. The story of my life.

This time around though, I was pleasantly surprised to find a wide array of gorgeous home decor fabrics at really great prices! Here’s a fist bump to the fabric industry!

I picked some of what I think are best ones out there and rounded ’em up below. If you’re looking for some great upholstery options or some inspiration for your next home project, then start here – all of these home decor fabrics are less than $15 a yard!!

Where to Buy Cheap Fabric Online

In my experience, these are the three top places for finding indoor outdoor quality fabric at good prices:

Fabric.com

Fabric.com has one of the largest selections of upholstery fabric I’ve ever seen. There is some more high end fabrics, but there is a big ol’ selection of discount upholstery fabric too.

Online Fabric Store

Online Fabric Store is very similar to Fabric.com – they have a lot of different types of fabrics, with a great selection of cheap fabrics.

Joann

While Joann does have brick and mortar stores that sell fabric, they actually have a ton more fabric online that isn’t available in stores! You can use coupons to get extra discounts too!

Cheap Upholstery Fabric Online: Top Picks

This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

Affordable Blue Home Decor Fabrics

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15

There are a lot of blues here, I know. I just kept finding so many that were gorgeous that I couldn’t not include them all. My personal favorites are:

2 – Those roses! You’ll see them more in this post in other colors as well!

5 – The cobalt dragons. These sooo need to go somewhere in my house! I love the cobalt in this print – doesn’t make it too much.

11 – A blue leopard print. I love this twist on leopard print. I think the blue gives it a traditional, but lighter feel.

Affordable Green Home Decor Fabrics

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

I just used #2, the green cheetah type print, on the cornice in my office makeover – I’ll have photos of it up soon! It’s a gorgeous print and I’m so glad I found it for my office.

I’m desperately trying hard to find a place to fit #3, the zebras, into my house somewhere. Aren’t those great?

Affordable Red Home Decor Fabrics

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

I really like how the black was brought in to #1. Sometimes black and red can feel like a little too much together, but I think it’s the perfect pattern here.

I also love those bold red roses in #2 – the color is just stunning.

Affordable Pink Home Decor Fabrics

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

I think #1 might just be my favorite flamingo print I’ve seen on fabric to date. It’s not too childish and has a chic feel.

I adore those pink roses (#3) – they have a gorgeous vintage feel. Yes, they are the same print as the red ones above, just a different color. That pattern comes in lots of different colors!

Affordable Black and Gray Home Decor Fabrics

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

A good black and white stripe never goes out of style, but I especially love how the stripes on #5 have a more painted feel. They aren’t too stuffy.

Affordable Floral Home Decor Fabrics

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

Floral prints – particularly ones that have a vintage vibe – and I are having a moment. I’m starting to think about the design for the screened-in porch at the farmhouse since it never got done last year and I’m really leaning toward some vintage feel floral prints paired with mint green and black and white.

What are your favorite discount upholstery fabrics?

Have a favorite place for finding cheap home decor fabric by the yard? Tell us where in the comments!

Here are similar posts you might find helpful…

How I Buy Fabric Online Without Seeing It In Person First – a little technique I use for making sure those fabrics are going to work well together when I get them in place!

20 Affordable Upholstered Accent Chairs – gorgeous chairs at great prices!

How to Waterproof and Repel Stains on Fabric – protect that beautiful fabric on your furniture with this!

If you’d like to hang onto this post for the future, pin the image below!

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February 20, 2018
How I Buy Fabric Online (Without Seeing It In Person First)

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It may be 2014, but I am still so skeptical about purchasing items online.

I’m always worried whatever I order isn’t going to look like what it looks like online or it will be different than I pictured it.

This is especially true when its a larger scale item or something that costs a good bit of money.

I absolutely despise paying return shipping fees if its not what I expected.

A lot of times though, prices are just so much better online than in store.

For example, fabric.

Oh my goodness, I could stay in a fabric store FOR-EV-ER.

(Please picture me saying FOR-EV-ER just like the kid with the glasses said it in The Sandlot.

And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, run and find a copy of The Sandlot and watch it.

Even though my brother subjected me to watching it over and over and over again one summer until the VHS finally gave out (thank you, lord), it really is a great movie.

Ok, back to fabric. I love fabric. I buy fabric and have no clue what I’m going to do with it all the time – I just think its pretty.

However, fabric can be so ridiculously expensive – except in this great realm of possibilities that we call the internet.

Seriously y’all, when I was using dial-up internet 15 years ago to download music illegally from Napster (we had no clue it was illegal then), I never dreamed I would one day be able to purchase just about anything I wanted with the click of a button.

Toilet paper. Click.

10 swimsuits from Victoria’s Secret (so you can try them on in the privacy of your home, only to return all 10 of them). Click.

Fabric. Click.

Now that I’ve rambled on and on about The Sandlot, the amazingness of the internet, and other things that the cheap beer I am drinking has led me to type, let’s talk about the real question here:

How I Buy Fabric Online Without Seeing It In Person

This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

Fabrics Pictured Above, Left to Right:

Fynn Jade / Portobello Vase / Linked Navy / Kaleidoscope / Guitars / Hockley Mandarin / Coral Stripes / Morrow Cool Grey / Feathers

Buying fabric online can be tricky.

Is the picture really showing the fabric’s true color?

Is it going to work with your rug?

Will it work with your curtains?

What about those pillows you want to be buried with? (Oh, maybe that’s one just me.)

There are two ways (according to me) you can rest assured you made the right fabric choice when buying online:

1. Order a sample of the fabric (for the patient person and large fabric purchases)

Many online sites that sell fabric offer samples of their fabric as well. Personally, my favorite online fabric stores are Online Fabric Store and Fabric.com. At both stores, you can purchase a small square sample of the fabric you are thinking about buying for about $2 per sample. Shipping and handling on samples are usually free. In 5-7 days you get your samples, put them against your rug, your curtains, your accent pillows, etc., see which works and then order it. You still get the savings of buying your fabric online, you just have to wait a bit longer.

When I was re-upholstering my dining room chairs, I went this route in selecting the fabric. The material I wanted was more expensive than any I had purchased before, so I wanted to make sure it was the right choice. I highly suggest going this route when you are purchasing a large quantity of fabric or a fabric that is more expensive than usual.

If you are impatient like I am most of the time and don’t like to wait to get your samples or the place you are buying from does not sell samples, you can go with option #2.

2. Create a collage of your fabric options and your current patterns & colors in your home (for the impatient person)

This is the route I usually go when buying fabrics online. I’m usually impatient and when I dream up a project – I want what I want when I say that I want it.

First, save images to your computer of the fabrics you are considering. You can usually drag them to your desktop on a Mac or do a right click and save image on a PC.

Next, take photos of your rugs, curtains, wall colors, etc. If you can find these items online, you can also save the images as you did above.

Now, go to PicMonkey and click Design, then select one of the options, I usually click the 5×7 one. Leave the canvas color white. Click on the Overlays button, which is the butterfly icon on the left side. Select Your Own at the top and choose a file of one of your fabric options. Continuing adding in all your files with the Your Own button until you have all your fabric options, rugs, curtains, wall color, etc. on the image.

Make the images larger so that you can actually see the curtains and patterns and play around with them until you decide which work best together.

This method is what I used for selecting the fabrics on my screened-in porch makeover. Here is what my image I made on PicMonkey looked like in the end.

And just in case you are wondering what all those colors and patterns are:

I grabbed images of the colors of my porch floor from Home Depot, then just pulled in the rest of the images of the fabrics I was considering. I knew I was good to go with all my fabric choices after making the collage on PicMonkey.

Don’t believe me?

Its all good, I wouldn’t believe me either – I’m a freak. See how it all came together in the porch reveal here.

Need affordable, but pretty fabrics? Then be sure to see these 50+ Home Decor Fabrics Under $15 a yard!

And if you need a way to protect that fabric read this about How to Waterproof & Repel Stains on Fabric.

More Helpful Picmonkey Tutorials:

17 PicMonkey Tutorials, Tips & Projects – you won’t believe all you can do with it!

DIY Party Invitation – Yep, I even create my kiddo’s birthday invitations with it!

How to Make a Party Banner with Picmonkey – easily customizable for any party!

You know you don’t wanna miss any of this crazy.

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July 28, 2014
DIY Floating Curtain Panels

As you guys well know, I will stretch a dollar as far as I possibly can.

And then some.

The same is true with fabric.

When I started the colorful porch makeover, Grunt Labor had one request:

Curtains.

Well he had other requests too, like a fireplace and a television, but at the current moment, those aren’t attainable.

He was adamant on the curtains though. He thought it would make the space feel more homey.

Yes, that coming from a male who even refers to himself as Grunt Labor is a little odd, but he was right. And really, the man rarely asks for anything around here – there was no way I could say no.

My problem was that I only had three yards of fabric for the curtains. Typically, I would be lucky to get two curtain panels out of three yards – and they would be skinnier panels at that.

My other problem here was that even though the porch is screened-in, the curtains were still going to get dirty at the bottom pretty quickly.

Luckily at Home Depot one day, the lightbulb went off.

Does anyone else have moments of genius at Home Depot? I swear sometimes that’s the only place I get them. I will have ran in for one can of spray paint and by the time I get to the checkout line, I’m struggling to hold onto everything that I’ve picked up and apologizing for knocking over a display with the 10 foot piece of pipe I’m barely holding under my arm.

Yep, I’m that girl.

But it was that stroke of genius that solved both problems – I would make Floating Curtain Panels.

This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

DIY Floating Curtain Panels

If you can sew a ~~straight~~ semi-straight line (my lines are never totally straight) and make a couple of simple cuts with a hand saw or electrical saw, you can totally do these. Seriously, they aren’t hard at all.

Materials Needed:

-3 yards of fabric of your choice (I used this outdoor fabric and it made three panels for me that were 19 in wide x 89 in long before being hemmed. I did have a little leftover. If these are going outdoors and you don’t find an outdoor fabric you like, you can always waterproof, color protect, and stain repel the fabric yourself by using this tutorial.

-10′ piece of 1/2″ PVC pipe

–Gold Spray Paint

-Regular Hand Saw or Circular Saw or Miter Saw (I used our Miter Saw)

-12 Screw Eyes

–Neon Pink Cord (or other color of your choice – you guys know I love my bright flashy colors)

-Scissors

-Sewing Machine & Thread or Stitch Witchery

-Straight pins

-Measuring Tape

Steps

Step 1

Cut your pipe down to whatever your desired length is. I was fitting my pipe between the 2×4 supports on my porch. Of course, no measurement between the 2x4s were the same. That’s just what you get with older houses and foreclosures, people. I thought it would look funny to have different size panels, so I opted to make all my pipes the same size, which was 19 inches. I marked my pipe and cut it with a miter saw.

Most of the pipe will be covered by the panels, however, the ends do still show. I didn’t want them to be white, so I spray painted the ends gold.

Step 2

Lay out your fabric and cut it into panels. Each of my panels were 19 inches wide x 89 inches long.

After you have cut your panels, pin down the long side edges only (not the top or bottom edges) and hem them. If you want to go the no-sew route, use the stitch witchery here.

And by the way, if I can sew a decently straight line on this….

Anyone can sew a decently straight line. That sewing machine was my great grandmother’s, my grandmother’s, and now mine. I’ve cursed it, hit it (that hurt), ran my finger through it on more than one occasion (that hurt more), but I wouldn’t think of sewing with anything else.

We have a history.

Step 3

Now you need to hem your top edges, but leave an opening for the pipe to fit through.

Do this by placing the pipe long the top edge, then pulling the fabric over the pipe and pinning the edges in place (#1 in the photo above). Remove the pipe and pin down the rest of the edge (#2 above). Finally, sew the edge down (#3). Repeat this with the top and bottom edges for all the panels.

Step 4

Take your screw eyes and screw one into each corner where your panels will hang from (top and bottom). Since my pipes were 19 inches long, I put my screw eyes about 19 inches apart.

Next, thread the nylon cord through your pipe and tie each end onto the screw eyes.

Stand back and observe your amazingness.

Go grab a cheap beer or a cocktail.

And relax in the shade of your new floating curtain panels that you made all by yourself.

Because you are a superstar.

Do you have any DIY curtain hacks?

See the full porch makeover here and this little DIY flamingo wreath that embellishes these curtain panels now!

Love a good curtain hack? Be sure to see these duck tape trimmed curtains too!

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July 21, 2014
Make Fabric Stain Resistant and Waterproof for Less than $10
Don’t chance your upholstery to kids or another red wine spill again! Learn how to make fabric stain resistant and waterproof it at the same time for only about $20.

Maybe you’ve figured out one of my dirty little secrets…

Ya know how when you see my dining room, you’ve never really seen the cushions on the chairs?

You may have seen a shot of the side of the chair seat, but not the whole thing.

Well, ummm…..

They were gross. Way gross and way past their makeover due date.

But I have a two year old, so I didn’t really want to re-upholster them and have her destroy them again in 2.0 seconds.

I looked longingly at fabric swatches, impatiently waiting for the day when my dining room chairs could shine once more.

One day, I happened upon the tool that would make them shine – without worrying about stains. I discovered how to waterproof and repel stains on fabric.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Thompson’s Waterseal. However, all gross seat cushions and opinions are 100% mine. This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

How to Waterproof Fabric and Repel Stains

This could quite possibly be one of the easiest, yet most valuable DIY projects of all time.

For me and my circus of a two year old anyway.

Here is a shot of one of my seat cushions before:

Ugh. I purposefully did not zoom in – because well, its just gross. You could probably discern between spaghetti sauce, mustard, and / or ketchup and who knows what else.

It was bad. Oh, and don’t worry about that brightly colored striped towel below the chair – its nothing new – just the catchall that sits under the kid’s chair when she loses her food.

Innovative, I am.

Materials and Supplies Needed:
- New Upholstery Fabric of Your Choice – This is my go-to online resource for gorgeous, yet affordable upholstery fabric.
- Thompson’s WaterSeal FabricSeal
Step 1

First off, you want to pick out pretty new fabric for your seats. I chose the gorgeous Williamsburg Portobello Vase Ladybug fabric from Online Fabric Store.

I fell for it the moment I saw it. Its a reproduction of fabric from the real Williamsburg, so if you have a nerdy of love of history like me, that’s kinda cool. It also has so many colors that it can work with just about anything.

Step 2

Measure and cut out the fabric you will need. I took the seats off my chairs, then laid it on the fabric and cut around it leaving extra to go over the edges.

Step 3

Lay all your fabric pieces out on a clean surface. I used a tarp. Give each piece a coat of Thompson’s WaterSeal FabricSeal. You may want to do a test spray on a small piece of fabric first to make sure it doesn’t change the color. (Mine was fine – no color change.) You are spraying this on the RIGHT side up of the fabric – not on the back.

You don’t want to saturate the pieces – just give them a nice even coat. Let them air dry for four hours, then give each piece another coat. Let them dry for four more hours, but wait 24 hours before exposing to moisture.

Step 4

Before you put them back on your seat cushions or make it into a pillow or whatever, you can test the seal by flipping water on the fabric to see if it will repel water now.

See those little bubbles of water? That mean’s the fabric is sealed. If it wasn’t sealed, the water would have seeped into the fabric. If the water doesn’t “bubble,” give the fabric another coat.

It took almost two cans for me to seal 6 pieces of large sized square cut pieces of fabric.

I am so happy to finally have pretty dining room chairs again.

After I re-upholstered my cushions, I tested out the stain and spill repellent-ness of the fabric seal a little more.

I took Coke and poured a little on one of the cushions.

I zoomed in so you could see the bubbling – it repelled the Coke!

I used a paper towel to soak up the Coke and this is what it looked like afterward:

Not a stain in sight!

Take note: According to the can, Thompson’s does recommend that you reapply the seal after any cleanings and annually.

Waterproofing sprays are also great to waterproof outdoor pillows and cushions that are always exposed to the elements.

You can find Thompson’s WaterSeal FabricSeal here.

Will you be stainproofing and waterproofing your upholstery now?

You might also want to see these other cleaning hacks and decor tips…

How to Clean Really Gross Vinyl Upholstery – the grime just melts off!

How to Get Pet Stains and Odors Out of Your Carpet Naturally – no harsh chemicals!

50+ Home Decor Fabrics under $15 a yard – gorgeous fabrics at low prices!

If you want to remember this upholstery waterproofing tip for later, just pin the image below!
May 1, 2014