Tutorial ~ Birthday Girl Bunting

Last week we celebrated my Daughters First Birthday! I can't quite believe she is one, where has the time gone? Anyway, we had a lovely day, her brother was extremely excited and opened all her presents and played with them all too! We had a little family party with cake and balloons and it was a really special day, we took lots of photos so when I get chance I will make a photo book for her as a keepsake.

I made this 'Birthday Girl' bunting to put up in the kitchen above the party food table:

I received such lovely feedback from friends and family and it was so easy to make, I thought I would show you how to make it step by step. If you follow my blog then you will know that I'm no expert and a novice on the sewing machine, so if I can do it then anybody can!

Here goes:

1. Have a good rummage through your fabric box for your chosen colour fabrics. If you don't have a fabric box then you can pick up remnants pretty cheap online or in your local haberdashery shop, or as an extra special touch you could cut up your children's old clothes (I'm not brave enough for that yet!).  Luckily I had lots of different pink fabrics to choose from:

2.Cut out a triangle from a piece of cardboard, use a cereal box or anything you can find, this will then be your template. Using an air erasable pen, draw around the triangle onto the back of your fabric.

Repeat step 2 for your chosen number of flags and then cut them out using your lines as a guide. Don't worry about it been too neat as you won't see it once it is turned inside out.

3. Once you have cut out all your flags, you will need to do the same again using the backing fabric. You may wish to choose the same fabric as the front, but as it wont be seen you could use something cheaper - I bought some cheap white pillowcases in a supermarket and used those!

4. Trace your chosen letters onto Bondaweb. I went for 'Birthday Girl' but you could do 'Happy Birthday' or anything you choose. I also did a small heart to use inbetween the two words to break it up but you could just have a blank flag. Remember to trace your letters backwards.

5. Iron your bondaweb onto felt. Remember to use a cloth when ironing on felt to prevent your iron from sticking to the felt. Initially I wanted to do pink fabric and white letters but wasn't sure if it would be visible from a distance, so went for this lovely teal colour instead.

6. Here is the fiddly part, using small scissors cut out your letters.

7. Peel the back off your letter and iron onto your fabric (remember to use a cloth).

Repeat step 7 for each letter.

8. The letters are now stuck in place and if you wanted to save time you could leave them like this. But I prefer to sew them on, I think it gives it more of a finished look. I used white thread and just a simple whip stitch to sew them into place.

Now for the sewing machine! Not sure if I have shown you my sewing machine before? It was my bargain buy for £10 from a charity shop and is perfect for what I need.

9. Pin the front and back of your flag together, right sides facing. Sew along the two bottom edges (leaving the top edge open).

10. Cut off any excess fabric, removing as much as you can around the point at the bottom.

11. Turn the flag inside out. Use a pencil or crochet hook to push out the point at the bottom. Mine isn't perfect but I'm not too worried.

12. Cut off the excess fabric at the top. Repeat for each flag.

13. Fold your bias binding. I would advise ironing it flat, I didn't do this but wish I had as it would have been easier and neater. Place your flags inside the folded binding and pin in place.

14. Run the full length of binding through the sewing machine and voila!

I hope you have found this tutorial easy to follow, if not please ask me any questions. As I said, I'm not an expert so there is probably things I should have done differently, but I am really pleased with the end result and will hang it up every year on my Daughter's Birthday - I may even put it up for my own Birthday in a few weeks!

I would love to know what you think or know if you have attempted this tutorial :) xxx

p.s. apologies for the quality of some of the pictures - I had to use the flash as I was sewing late into the evening before her birthday!