Valentine Bunting

 I'm kind of obsessed with banners like this. 

I loved making this one. I picked fabric that felt a little vintage, and I love how it turned out. 

I originally found the inspiration here. She stenciled her letters on, but I liked the look of applique better.

Here's the cool part: I ran the fusible web through my printer with the paper side up so I didn't have to trace the letters on by hand. I felt so smart with this idea. Make sure you print the letters backwards though!

 I did this mock up to practice my blanket stitch length, and to make sure my proportions were right. Good thing I did this first. I put the Wonder Under on the wrong side :) Just iron it all on, and stitch around the heart and the letters. I chose a straight stitch for the letters and a machine blanket stitch for the hearts. You could zig zag, or do whatever you think is cute. 

Then I sewed bias tape on, and that was it. I made my own so it would match that coral pink, but you could make it easy on yourself and just buy some. 

All done. Love it.

Alphabet Banner

I want the play area in our house to have a schoolroom-like atmosphere, so of course we needed the alphabet displayed.

There is something about felt that gets me creative. I don't know what it is, but when I pull that stuff out, my mind goes crazy with ideas.

I started by cutting the letters freehand. The first few I traced, but that was way too labor-intensive and unnecessary.

I used a simple, rustic looking fabric for the background, and used a contrasting thread (red) to outline the letters and hem the fabric.

My girl was playing stepping stones on the letters, saying each one (that she knows) as she went....

then my little boy was driving his cars on it, as if it was a road...

so now I am thinking up new projects along these lines that the kids could play with.

Fabric Bunting

Just tell me when you all get bored with nursery stuff...I  still have more where this came from. I made this banner to hang in her room/to use at a baby shower that my family threw for me. I think it adds a bit of whimsy.

I love the website Ohdeedoh. Lots of great inspiration. I had a desk job when I was first pregnant, and when it was slow, I spent a lot of time getting ideas for my "dream" nursery. I saw several different nurseries using these fabric pennant banners. (like here, here, and here)

You can buy a banner like this for anywhere from $20-$40 on Etsy, but I wanted to customize mine with  fabric I had on hand. And I wasn't in the mood to spend that much money. 

I kind of looked at this tutorial to get the main idea, and tweaked it to how I wanted it. I actually had the bias strip binding left over from some bumper pads I made, so I just cut the triangles out, and used that with them. 

The triangles measure about 5.5" across the top, and are 6" long. 

 

Love it. The best part is that I can take it down and use it again for anything--another baby shower, a party, whatever. 

Trick or Treat...

Trick or Treat banner....my sister and I got this idea from Pottery Barn kids under Halloween

decorations HERE it was kind of a lot of work but we did everything from scratch

even the pompoms...BUT it turned out super cute and looks very festive in my window

it was trial and error with us...we guessed on how much fabric and felt

so I don't have measurements, sorry!

We cut the black triangles out of felt, cut our pattern fabric smaller than the felt, iron on

to felt triangles using wonder-under (name brand) or fusible webbing

We got wide grosgrain ribbon to sew the triangles to the ribbon

We also decided to make homemade pompoms out of knitting yarn because the store

bought pompoms were not cute. We enlisted grandma to make them, the yarn we used

was messy and took some serious time but so worth it. We used 2 types of yarn to give

a more spidery effect.

We attached the pompoms using the black yarn we bought and threaded it through the ribbon using

a large embroidery needle so that they would be sturdy and not make the banner floppy

 Lastly, we used a cricut machine to cut out the letters.  The white is textured cardstock size 4"

than we used black vinyl cut at 3 1/2".  The letters didn't always match up perfectly but we

 like the spooky/crooked look anyway.

 I used spray adhesive to attach them to the fabric triangles but my sister used tacky

 fabric glue which works a little better.

Kind of a lot of steps

Hope I explained it and didn't make it more confusing for everyone!

HAPPY CRAFTING!