Today is jumping Joseph's birthday and I thought I would share our re-usable birthday decoration idea. For quite a while I had been looking for some sort of garland that would be festive yet re-usable from birthday to birthday and year to year. The kids were always asking for crepe paper streamers but I didn't like having to purchase them over and over again. The solution to our little dilemma turned out to be quite simple!
I ordered a couple of "Charm Packs" from the Fat Quarter Shop and bought a roll or two of the 1/8" wide cream colored satin ribbon from the craft store. (It is less than $1.00 per roll.) "Charm Packs" are these neat little stacks of pre-cut 5" squares in an assortment of wonderful fabrics.
- To make the garland, first iron each of the 5" squares in half, on the diagonal.
- Next, lay out all of the triangles and arrange them in the order that you like. (I used about 21 or 22 triangles per garland.)
- Thread your sewing machine with a thread that matches the overall color of your fabrics. Leave about a 2 foot tail of ribbon at each end for tying up the garland and begin by placing the ribbon inside the fold of the first fabric triangle, and stitching it across the top. After stitching across one triangle, simply add on the next and stitch across it, and so on.
And there you have it! A simple, re-usable and pretty, birthday garland. So much nicer than our old crepe paper arrangement. :-) I ended up making a girl's set and a boy's set combining two different Charm Packs for each set. The two packs I used for the girl's are actually on sale right now!
