Miniature Paper Tape Bunting!

 

Bunting is a fantastic way to brighten up a dull corner, and this miniature bunting can find a home in the smallest of spaces! The bunting is made from Washi (paper) tape and cotton thread, and is a quick and easy project, and thrifty too.

First choose your washi tape- I chose tapes that were all the same width for a uniform look. Next fold short lengths of tape in half over a strand of thread (or wire if you want to shape your finished bunting), sticking them to themselves. The lengths of tape that I used were approimately 3cm long, and I attached them to the thread with 2cm gaps between each ‘flag’.

Keep adding strips of tape until the bunting is of the desired length. Next, cut the bottom off each piece of tape, making the ‘flags’ into squares.

 You can leave the flags as squares for a bolder look, or trim them into triangles. If making triangular flags then I found that it is best to cut from the top of each flag, downwards, to avoid accidentally snipping the thread!

And after only a few minutes’ work you have some lovely, cheerful bunting to brighten up a corner of your day!

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Winter/Christmas Bunting

A couple of years ago I got together with some friends before Christmas and we all made our own strings of Christmas bunting (or seasonal winter-themed bunting). It is a relatively quick and easy project, and I have just finished making the string shown here as a Christmas present for a friend this year.

The project is great for using left over scraps of fabric or felt, and the flags can be as big or small as you want (and any shape!). I used felt here as it doesn’t fray (so time didn’t need to be spent on hemming all of the edges), and felt is also thick enough to glue- rather than sew- the pieces together without the glue showing.

I am a great fan of sewing things (and very fussy about the finish being as near to perfect as possible), but in this project using glue still resulted in a very nice finish, and saved time. Gluing most fabrics results in a less tidy finish than stitching, with the dried glue being visible on the finished piece, but felt is thick enough to prevent the glue soaking through if you don’t use too much.

Very few materials are needed, and this is a great stash-busting project as all sorts of items can be used for decoration, including pompoms, buttons, ric rac or sequins.

Using glue made it much easier to attach the pompoms, and taking care to use a small amount meant that it wasn’t visible. The Bostik glue that I used here is fantastic, and I have yet to find a material that it won’t work on! It also dries a lot quicker than textile glue, making it easier to work with.

The project was so quick and easy that a couple of work colleagues may also be receiving some bunting for Christmas this year…!

Autumnal Acorn Garland

It’s the time of year when there are lots of crunchy things underfoot when out for a walk: fallen leaves, conker cases, acorns etc. It seemed a shame to just throw away all of the perfect little acorn cups that had fallen in the garden, so I made this garland with some of them instead!

Once acorn cups have dried, the acorns fall out (ready to start growing!), so I only used empty cups for this garland. It was fiddly joining the twigs with wire, but unlike using glue, it meant that the finished piece is flexible. Obviously the insides of the cups weren’t naturally bright pink, I just fancied a pop of colour.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with the garland, it was mainly an excuse for some playtime with a different material! At the moment it is hanging across the top of a mirror, providing some seasonal decoration. Nature definitely makes the best bunting!

Crocheted Flower and Neon Pompom Garland

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This garland hangs above a print tray in my studio that contains a rainbow of vintage wooden cotton reels. I enjoy crocheting, and had wanted to make a crocheted flower garland for ages, but I struggled to find the time in between other projects. However, with the help of a 50p crocheted mat from a charity shop (see picture below), and some pompoms left over form another project, I managed to make a quick and easy version, that is still handmade.

The garland is a great project for using bits and pieces of vintage haberdashery, or odds and ends from your craft/sewing stash! This is how you can make your own:

1. Wash and iron your mat (handmade mats/doilies like this can be found in charity shops and at car boot sales with relative ease. The great thing about this project is that if part of the mat is torn or stained, then you can discard that section and still use the rest!).
2. CAREFULLY unpick the stitching that holds the individual flowers together.
3. Select- or make- your pompoms.
4. Attach a pompom to the bottom of each flower. I sewed mine on, but this was time consuming and fiddly. With the benefit of hindsight, next time I will glue the pompoms to the flowers, taking care that none of the glue is  visible on the final piece.
5. Select, or make, the string that the flowers will be suspended from. I crocheted a base chain to the desired length, as I felt that it was in keeping with the flowers.
6. Sew the flowers to the string. I don’t think that glue could be used for this stage, as it would be visible on the finished garland.
7. Hang up your garland and enjoy!

  There are many variations that can be applied to this project: try dyeing the crocheted flowers; use a brightly coloured ribbon or piece of ricrac for the string; use feathers, buttons or beads instead of pompoms; try crocheted flowers of different sizes on the same garland; use pompoms all in one colour for an understated look, and/or match the colour of the pompoms to the string or flowers; make a large pompom from yarn, and attach a smaller crocheted flower beneath instead of on top…etc…..

 

Sew much fun!

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I had a lovely time last weekend teaching a friend to sew. She bought an old manual Singer from me to learn how to use a sewing machine, and we had fun playing around with a variety of specialised feet as well. As a useful beginner’s project she made a 3.5 metre length of bunting (consisting of nine flags), using vintage and antique and-embroidered fabrics. The fabric was cut from damaged items, so it was a good up-cycling project too. In between teaching I started to make a length of bunting of my own, which I plan to finish this weekend- photo to follow!