Bunting Tutorial

A few years ago I made this bunting with some old curtain fabric and we have had fun with it, but I wanted to make a longer string so I went fabric shopping at JoAnnes, but I just couldn't find anything I liked. After stewing about it for a couple of days I remembered that WalMart has fabric so Teen2 and I trotted over there one evening and SHOCK! they had some of the cutest fabrics! I got two yards of two different patterns and four yards of a third pattern; all co-ordinating, of course.

 Here's a drawing of my template and how I laid the triangles out on the fabric. I cut the template out of cardboard so I could trace around it again and again. The triangle is 11" x 8 1/2" and it fits perfectly on a strip of fabric 12" long leaving 1/2" seam allowances all around. So if you use this template, you will get 21 triangles out of one yard of fabric. You need to unfold the fabric and refold it as shown to make best use of the width. Then trace around the cardboard template leaving 1" between triangles, and 1/2" at the top and bottom. Put three pins inside each triangle to hold it together whilst you sew. Don't waste time cutting around each triangle before you sew, simply sew the fabric together in the 12"x44" chunk and cut it apart after you're done sewing.

 I actually used a felt pen called Marks Be Gone for my tracing. These pens are used by quilters and the marks disappear with a spray of cool water after you are done sewing.

Here is how the fabric looks with all the marking and pinning done.

The I cut it into a manageable chunk.....

and started sewing. Make sure to leave the top part open for turning later.

After sewing, I cut the triangles apart.....

and trimmed the points to make the turning easier.

Turning the triangles inside out was the most time consuming part of the project, but I made 60 triangles, so maybe you won't feel so overwhelmed if you only make 20 or so. After turning the triangles, iron them so they look nice and crisp....

then trim off the little pieces of seam allowance that stick up on the top.

Here are the stacks of triangles at the half way point. The fabrics I chose are fairly bright, but I wanted that cheerful almost "Cath Kidston" look, so I'm quite pleased with my WalMart fabrics.

When they were finally all done I played with them, laying them out on the bed to "Ohhhh" and "Awww" at their prettiness. Then I took 60' of seam binding and marked it every 12". And then came the long process of sewing them all together. I encased the raw edges on the top of each triangle with the seam binding, sewing close to the bottom edge. Then I went back and sewed along the top edge to strengthen the seam binding. Then....

Happy, Happy, Day, I strung them all around this awning thing that's over my patio. And then we had a wonderful English tea party here Amongst The Oaks. 

You can make paper bunting too like I've done here above my range in the kitchen, and it's a lot easier. Just cut the triangles, fold them over and glue them around a ribbon, and you're done. You can decorate them with letters or pretty pictures too. I hope you try one of these ideas and let me know how it turns out.

Toile Lamp Shades

After Teen1 (I need to think of a new name for her since she's not a teen anymore) moved out I was left with a nice freshly painted blue bedroom, new beige carpet and a new off-white Roman shade. She took her bed and furniture so I gathered together Grandmother's stuff again; a brass bed and an Empire style dresser. Then I studied it all for a while trying to think of a more traditional scheme that would work with the colors. I've always loved toile, so I figured black and white toile was the answer.

I'm going to make a toile bedskirt and some pillows for the bed too, but I started with the lampshades. I got those pre-sticky ones at JoAnne's and some sticky trim for the edges too. I also got little black tassels. The lamp shades were very easy to do and I'm quite pleased with the results.

Did you know you could get these fancy little knobs at OSH? You just unscrew the plain brown plastic ones and screw these in their place. Too cute, eh?

So here we are Amongst The Oaks actually making progress on the Guest Room Remodel.

Artsy Car

I've always liked playing with little towns, roads, houses and the like. So when I saw this street scene recently ON A CAR ROOF, I just had to take a picture. The whole car was decorated with jewels, toys, sayings and other fun stuff.

Here's an overview, but to really appreciate the car you have to get up close.

Lizard and peace signs on one of the mirrors.

A nice saying and some flowers for gardeners.

Love and peace and celebration on the driver's door.

And the best "Day Brightener" on the passenger door. One can't help but be happy after seeing a car like this. I sometimes think I'd like to decorate a car. I think I'd do something like this:

Hogwarts Party Details

One of my favorite details about Hogwarts was the floating candles in the Great Hall. To recreate that I used those battery operated candles you see around Christmas. You've probably seen them before. The neat thing about them is you can put them in your own candle holders, turn the switch on at 5pm, and every day they will come on at 5pm and stay on for about 5 hours. The batteries last for months, so even in the cold, dark days of January they still come on to cheer your evenings. I got my first batch years ago from the Lillian Vernon catalog, but I've since found them online here.

To get the Great Hall effect, I took them out of their holders, tied thread around the bulbs and suspended them from the ceiling of my dining room with clear pushpins. I was quite happy with them and I think the Fat Lady was too.

The invitations were printed in green ink using a font I found online called Hogwarts. I tried to use similar verbage to Harry's first acceptance letter. And I tried to address each one using descriptive terminology for each kid's bedroom. If we had no idea about their bedroom we used the Cupboard under the Stairs.

When the guests arrived they had the option to don the Sorting Hat and be assigned a house. We had several stickers for each house, but the Gryffindor stickers seemed to be the most popular.

We also found some Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans and gave them as prizes. They are always fun. The flavors seem to change over the years. I remember getting a dirt flavored one before and I heard there was earwax and vomit too, but this year the icky ones were FISH, CHEESE, ONION, PEPPER, GRAVY, and SAUSAGE. And yes, they really taste like their names.

And Ollivander (Teen2) made a little display of wands that guests could borrow.

I hope you enjoyed visiting our Harry Potter theme Halloween party. Now, who's excited about November 19th? I know we are!

House Elves Only!

You know how when you have a party and everyone ends up in the kitchen no matter how nicely you have set everything up in all the other rooms? I'm hoping this will keep a few of the kids out of the kitchen. What do you think?

It's just an old sheet with the message stenciled on in green spray paint. Then we tore it up from the bottom so you could pass through it easily. The cats are having a lot of fun with it, but I hope

I didn't just make a plaything for them. Oh well, on to the menu.

Grain Painting

We get some interesting jobs at work.... Like this grain painting on antique automobile parts. The owner is restoring the vehicle and the original parts were grain painted but worn, so he came to us to get them redone. Grain painting is not something we ordinarily do, but this man is an old and loyal customer so we are willing to try just about anything for him.

First we photographed all the parts and got color matches for the background and glazing. Then we sandblasted the parts, primed them and painted them this ochre color. Here is the glove box door.

I don't have any fancy graining brushes so I cut V shaped chunks out of a throw away brush to make one. Then I mixed equal parts faux painting glaze and a very dark brown color. Here is the "graining" brush loaded with glaze.

Step one is to apply the glaze in slow steady strips across the piece. If the lines are a little wiggly it doesn't matter, but the thickness of the paint should be consistent.

Notice how the curved window frames are even more wiggly because it's harder to do irregular shapes. But seriously, it won't matter.

Step Two is to drag a soft dry brush across the grain. This is where consistent application of paint in the first step really shows its importance. If you applied too much, it just makes a big smear, if you applied too little, it won't pull out the horizontal marks.

This is how you want it to look.

Step three is to stipple the wettest areas with a stiff dry brush. Stipple means to tap the surface with the tip of the brush. Above is a window frame and below is the glove box door after stippling.

Step four is to drag the soft dry brush back over the wettest areas with the grain this time.

I repeated those four steps again and again as I worked my way around the six window frames, the dash, and the glove box door. And then I repeated them again and again and again for the second coat.

This is how it finally looked. So don't be intimidated by grain painting. It just takes some faux painting glaze, a few simple tools, and lots of patience.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July everyone!
I made a decoration for my front door. I took a hat that was left over from the Tea Party, put some flag-ish ribbon on it, and embellished it with firecrackers! Terrible festive, don't you think?

I just hope no one decides to put a match to them. That would even be louder than my door knocker, which is unbelievably loud.

We hope to go black berry picking today. It's a tradition here Amongst The Oaks. Then we will make a berry cobbler, but don't tell Teen2, she's already mad that she missed the lorikeets, that might send her over the edge.