Twilight Party: The Banner

Growing up, my step-mom owned a sign shop. She would use vinyl, paint, markers, etc, to make signs, posters, lettering on trucks, and so much more. One of the things she's always done, though, are banners for big events like Graduations, Weddings, Benefits and more.

She asked if Rae would like a banner for her party, and I said YES! I knew she'd do a great job, and she really did an awesome job with it.

The banner is done 100% with MARKER! No paint, no vinyl, just marker! And, it's all free hand. Isn't she amazing??

I love the dripping blood effects she added! The gray all shows up metallic silver in person, but looks more gray here. The black background? She must have spent a LOT of time on that, because it's all colored in with marker!

I didn't tell Raegan about it until it came. I was going to try and wait until the day of the party, but I got too excited! It just looked way too cool to keep hidden away. It was a great addition to the party!

I added black sheer ribbon with silver glitter to drape across the top like crepe paper, then added lights as well around it. It looked great! The girls at the party all said they'd never seen such a cool party set up as we had.

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Homemade Birthday Gifts

Next week, my niece Alexandria (Alex for short) turns 3. She's our Easter baby, and was born on Good Friday. For her birthday this year, my sister Brooke asked me to make her a wall hanging for her bedroom. I did- then I kept going, matching other items to it.

So far, I've posted all of them except the last two- which I only just did today.

First up today, I made her a banner for her bedroom. Alex has learned to spell ALEX, and loves anything with her name on it, or her first letter. I've focused on that with several of her gifts.

Name Banner


You'll Need:
Foam Shapes- Dollar Tree has many right now! 1 pack has 24 of 1 shape in 6 assorted colors for $1
Foam Sheets- Dollar Tree, again- 32 small sheets for $1
Hot Glue
Ribbon

1. Start by picking your colors. I chose to go with an assortment of bright colors, and mixed them all up together. 
2. Next, I used the shaped foam to make a template on the square foam, so I knew what size to make the letters. I just traced the top and bottom outline, since all the shapes were wider than the plain foam. Once I did that, I used a ruler to help make letter shapes- remember to do the letters backwards!
3. Cut the letters, and hot glue them onto the foam shapes.
4. To attach them, you could sew them together, or sew them to ribbon. I chose to cut small lengths of ribbon, and hot glue them each together. For the two ends, I made the ribbon much longer, and added ribbon tails to it with 3 other ribbons.

Tada- all done! I would say it took me about 30 minutes to do, but it really didn't feel time consuming. I had planned to sew her a banner with felt- this was MUCH faster, and so fun! Alex can use it at her birthday party, and then hang it in her room.

Costs-
Foam Shapes- 24/$1 x 2, 10 used for a total of $.42 worth of foam shapes.
Foam Sheets- 32/$1 x 1, 11 used (1 OOPS) for a total of $.34 worth of foam
Ribbon- $3.99/5 yards, 1 yard used- $1.25 worth of main ribbon
Ribbon 2- $1/3 yards, 1/2 yard used- $.17 worth of ribbon
Ribbon 3- $1/3 yards, 1/2 yard used- $.17 worth of ribbon
Ribbon 4- $.40/3 yards, 1/2 yard used- $0.07 worth of ribbon

Total Costs- $2.42 (yes, I was being nit-picky... I hate saying "on hand", when it was still bought whether I owned it before or FOR the project)


Next up... A Beach Bag!

I loved the beach bag I made over the weekend out of placemats, and thought Alex would love one as well. This one I made a little different. I had a hard time finding bright colored placemats that were fabric. The Dollar Tree had them in plastic, and those round wicker-y type things, but not fabric. So...

Beach Bag

You'll Need:
2 Dish Towels
2 Belts
Scrap Fabric & Ribbon
Sewing Machine

I loved those towels when I saw them!

1. The dish towel is going to be larger than you need, but it works out great- because they are also much thinner than you need, material wise. Fold it in half, and stitch up the open ends, to make 1, double the thickness pad of material. For me, it did not come out evenly shaped, so I sewed straight lines, and trimmed excess fabric.
2. Once both towels are sewn into the right size 'pads', I attached my appliques. MUCH easier when it's not already a bag, for the record. In this instance, I chose to do 2 appliques, one is the letter A, and the other is a pair of flip flops. I  used the paper pattern I created yesterday to make the flip flops again today. This time, I sewed it with a wide, close together zig zag stitch. I chose a purple fabric to match the purple straps. For the letter A, I stitched ribbon right onto the fabric. It worked beautifully, and brought in the colors yellow, orange, pink and green. I stitched it with a decorative flower stitch.
3. Once your appliques are done, sew the handles onto the fabric. I started on the free end each time, so that it would leave as much extra for the handle as possible. I used a zig zag stitch, though if you want a neat clean look, twin rows of single straight stitches would look nicer, in the same or contrasting color. For my belts, I chose to sew them on with the pattern against the fabric. It's still visible on the handles, and matches the colors on the towels, but it felt like too much running all the way down the straps.
4. When both handles are attached, pin the two sides together from the middle of the bottom, attempting to match the handle straps up as much as possible. Stitch the sides and bottom all closed, trim the excess fabric, and turn it right side out.

You're done!

It also worked as a wonderful "gift" bag for the items I've made for her! All of them are inside it, nice and neat!

This project took about 30 minutes, start to finish, but might be able to be done faster without the appliques. It is super cute, though, and I love how this one turned out. I'm tempted to start making these to sell. Tempted. Not sure I will, though.

Cost-
Towels: $1/each at Dollar Tree
Belts: $1/each at Dollar Tree

Total: $4

On top of these two projects, I made Alex

• A Magnet Board 
• Butterfly & Flower Magnets 
• A is for Alex sign 
• a Photo Clip, and a Magic Wand

She's going to just love these, and it's not another box to cut apart, and another toy to be forgotten in 2 days.

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LOVE Banner

As many of you know, I've been off my feet (and subsequently, my rear as well) for the past 11 days now, with a broken tailbone. It's allowed a lot of time to read, watch movies, grow increasingly antsy, with bouts of cabin fever, and, lastly, nurse my creative bones.

For instance, when I craft, I normally handle almost all my stitching by machine. I'm not a patient girl. But, I've discovered over the past week- if there is no other place pulling me to be, nothing else that needs to be done, I can be a very patient girl.

And thus started "The Great Banner Project" of 2010. It's not all that grand, or large, and certainly, if I had been up to long bouts at the machine, I probably would have done a lengthier word than LOVE. However, doing it by hand means it takes longer. I must say, though, that I love the look of the contrasting thread stitches. They look folksy, or countryish.

So here it is, the hand made (by actual hands) LOVE banner. I only used the sewing machine for a frustrating 30 minutes last night to stitch all the pieces to the ribbon. Frustrating because my machine was acting out. Probably feeling ignored and petty. Pfft. It's such a child.

I used felt in red, white, and light pink. I used red and white thread, and added red and white pom poms to the tips of the triangles and the hearts. I tried to add sequins, but they glitz did not look right, so I ripped em off.

I stitched it all to a length of light pink satin ribbon, and on the ends, I added a length of wider red satin ribbon for the hang-downs. To hang it up, I used clothes pins to pin it to my curtain.

All in all, this project is easy, and inexpensive. I used about 2 sheets of red felt, 2 sheets of white felt, and half a sheet of pink felt. The ribbon was a cast off left over I had on hand. The pom poms were left from Christmas projects. All in all, it was done with on-hand items. Price wise, I got the sheets of red & white felt in large packages from DT. I used 2 of the sheets each, and there are 14 sheets to a package. Those sheets were $.07 each, or $.28 for the red & white I used. The pink was $.47 a sheet at Walmart, but I only used half, so $.24 for the pink. The poms were in a package of around 30 of them for $1 from DT, and I used 7, so roughly $.23 for 7 puff balls. The ribbon was from a $1.99 roll of 9 yards, but I only used about 2 yards, so about $.44 for that.

Total cost would be roughly $1.19 for the banner. This project can be made with a variety of on-hand items, and the length can be adjusted up or down. I could have used less ribbon and felt had I left out the hearts, for instance.

 

 After taking a few photos, I decided to add the Ribbon & Tulle wreath I made last week behind the banner. I love it! It's so festive! Later this week, I'll photograph my new, hand decorated place mats I made while laying in bed.

 

I am hoping to be out of bed for longer periods of time this week, and to try and tackle some decoupage. I have some wooden hearts, and 1 fiber-board heart plaque I found at DT, and I want to get them done soon. I'm itching to do more crafts, and it's bothering me that I'm fairly limited in just what all I can do from bed.

 

This post has been shared at the following websites. If you have a craft project you want to share, these sites are a great way to share them, and get your blog seen!

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