How to melt your window blinds

My room's large window faces west. This means that mornings are nice and cool, but afternoons and evenings are not so cool with Arizona summers. I've been trying to find ways to cool my room down. I read that you can use an emergency blanket as a curtain. This is supposed to deflect the heat from entering the room. This does work, but I would suggest that you do not have plastic window blinds between the blanket and window. It took just several days for it to melt my blinds. I was shocked to see how when I left for work, my blinds looked normal, and when I returned they began to melt. (I have to admit I laughed at this sight, as I was sure if anyone could, it would be me to find some way of doing this). It's nice to know that the blanket idea is helping to reflect the heat though. My very wise brother suggested that I place the emergency blanket against the window to really reflect all the heat and cool the room down even more. That was one of the best things I heard regarding my situation :)

These pictures may be hard to see the great new shape my blinds morphed into. I realize I should have taken a picture BEFORE I put the emergency blanket on the window...