Hey Everyone! My sister’s (Kelsey- remember the invites?) graduation party was this past weekend and I made some inexpensive fun decorations that can work for a variety of parties and (hopefully) upcoming dorm rooms!

Using the colors from the invitations I made bunting (the little flags), tissue balls and some drink labels.

(bunting and tissue balls)

(close up of bunting and tissue balls)

(Drink labels- these photos were taken a little late in the day hence the disarray. Download pdf below)

BUNTING INSTRUCTIONS

What to buy: I bought 3 yards of navy fabric, blue/white stripe fabric, and gray fabric and 2 yards yellow gingham. That turned out to be waaaay too much but it was $2.99/yard so whatever. I probably used about half of all the fabric and made 15 yards of bunting. I bought all sorts of fabrics because I was after certain colors/patterns but the cotton fabric worked best. I also bought wide bias tape to connect it all though in retrospect there is probably a better solution. Ask the people who work at the fabric store but wide bias tape is cheap and worked! The one I got was gate folded (at least that it would have been called in printing- the ends folded into the middle) and I needed to unfold and refold it with an iron in half.

Other tools: something to cut fabric with (I used a rotary cutter), piece of paper, ruler, sewing machine and an iron.

First things first: Take your piece of paper and fold it vertically. Cut the paper diagonally so when it’s unfolded you have a large isosceles triangle. (Hells yeah, math!) See step 3 for what it looks like unfolded. Since we now have an 11 inch triangle we know how long to cut the fabric which brings us to Step 1:

[Step 1] Using another piece of paper (or in this case chip board because it was hanging around) as a template mark 11 inches into the fabric and…

[Step 2] …cut it using your ruler and cutting instrument.

[Step 3] Line up your triangle template along the bottom left edge of the fabric. Since you just cut the fabric to be 11 inches the point will come to the other end. Yay! Line up the ruler to the bottom edge of your template and cut. Then leaving the template in place, cut following along the other side. You have now cut out one flag.

[Step 4] Since the angles are the same on each side of your triangle template flip the pointy side around and cut along the top of the template (as seen above) and now (with one cut) you’ve got another flag. Continue until you’ve got as many flags as you want/need. Handy tips: having the fabric doubled not only doubles your time but later insures that your flags front and back are always the same. For fabrics that would allow it (one was a cotton stretch and too thick) I had the fabric folded in half for steps 1-4 and stored the flags in sets of 2s.

[Step 5] With the good sides (the sides that will show in the bunting) facing in sew the long edges. (I didn’t see a reason to sew the tops.

[Step 6] Once you’ve got all your flags sewn, turn them out and iron the seams flat.

[Steps 7 ] I didn’t have a large enough space to spread all of the flags out like they would be in the bunting so I laid out the flags in a somewhat random pattern on the ironing board. Once the flags were in an order I liked I piled them up and one by one tucked the short edge into the folded bias tape. I back stitched a bit on either side of the flags to make sure they were securely affixed to the bias tape and wouldn’t sag or fall out and left about 3 inched between each flag. I used a straight stitch the entire way but a zig-zag would probably look cool as well.

Bunting final thoughts: This was fun but time-consuming. It took about 3 hours to cut the fabric out and about 6 to sew the flags together and then into the bias tape. I am glad though that I did use fabric (I had also considered paper which obviously wouldn’t have been sewn) and glad that I did make them double sided because I think they’ll last longer and I probably would have had to hem the sides anyway if they were single sided so same work for less.

DRINK SIGNS

You can download the files here. You can find mojito recipes online although I usually cheat and use rum, limes, mint and sprite zero. I’m not sure where my Mom got the boozy strawberry lemonade recipe but I will ask. The dispensers they were served in were from Kohl’s and Walmart and I think we decided the Walmart one was better. There are also bonus “onion dip” and “garlic dip” labels too. They should be cut down and folded in half around a toothpick and notched at the ends like the “eat me”/”drink me” labels.

Edited to add: Strawberry Lemonade recipe from Mom:

It’s easy 1 things of simple lemondade, 1 cup of citrus vodka, 1/4 c sugar, 1.5 cups of blended strawberries (I think the frozen ones worked ok) if I use fresh again I’m not sure if I would puree them – made it a soupy mixture.

TISSUE POOFS

If they weren’t before these are now my favorite decorations of all time. They are cheap (I found packs of 8 sheets of tissue paper [which is what it calls for] at Party City for $0.99 a pack), they are easy and they are pretty quick. See Martha Stewart for the instructions.

And that’s a wrap! If you have any questions about anything- it’s pretty obvious I’m not the most proficient sewer but I try- just ask!