Birthday Banners!

I loved the idea of having pretty banners up for bedroom decorations or various holidays that I have seen floating around over the past several years.  Our own cardboard birthday banner bit the dust several years ago and we have settled for paper streamers for a while.  But with all this snow around I was feeling the need to do something CREATIVE with all this indoor time. 

I found a blue scrap of bias binding that I had and dug into my small scraps stash of fabric in shades of blue.  I ironed the scraps, cut six inch squares and then used zig zag scissors when I folded the squares in half to form a triangle.  I left the edges raw and sewed the folded part of the triangle inside the folded bias binding.  Each triangle overlapped the last.  Blue went with our latest birthday party theme but I like this project so much I may do different color themes and sizes in the future.  This was quick and easy.

I got this idea from Handmade Home.  I repurposed the edge piece I had left of an ancient white sheet.  The rest of the worn sheet had become either a ghost costume about 10 years ago or else the backing of our Christmas Tree skirt I made 19 years ago… not sure which at this point but the sheet was OLD!  I had enough sheet to cut out 13 rectangles that were 6x13.  The rectangle with the heart is slightly smaller simply because that is all I had left.  I dug into my scrap stash and picked out scraps of fabric to cover the gamut of colors in the rainbow.  I printed out bubble letters on the computer, pinned the letters to the scraps and used them to cut out fabric letters through the paper.  I centered the letters at a far end of the white rectangle and straight stitched around each letter leaving the edges raw for a shabby look that will fray a little over time.  After that, I folded the rectangle with the stitched letter in half and did a zig zag stitch around the letter leaving a casing at the top and leaving edges raw for the same shabby chic look.  When the letters were all done I strung the letters onto a ribbon and used a large safety pin to hook each end onto my curtain rods.  The room was instantly festive and everyone agrees that this banner is far better than any streamers or cardboard banners we have put up before.  I’m thinking of doing more letters so we can arrange letters for various holidays or include names.  This was also an easy project.  The most time consuming thing was stitching letters but the time went quickly when I moved my work up to the table in the living room where it was warmer and there were people to visit with or a TV show to watch.
These were both finished in time to celebrate my 17 year olds birthday and my 7 year olds birthday party just a few days later.  My little guy is talking about when we get it out again for his birthday now.