Last Minute Halloween Bunting Tutorial

This week Miss 4 and I made some quick paper bunting for Halloween, using just materials we already had at home.

This is a really simple and expensive option for decorating the front of your house.

What you'll need:
- a few sheets of A4 orange paper (we used neon orange)
- a few sheets of A4 black paper
- string (ours happened to be black string from IKEA)
- glue
- stapler (optional)
- ruler, pen, scissors

Fold one piece of A4 paper in half, as shown.

Then fold that piece of paper again, into thirds.  To make sure it's folded evenly in thirds, you can mark a dot at 7cm and 14cm and fold to them.

Once folded into thirds, find the middle of the panel, which should be 3.5cm.  Make sure you mark the end of the panel that has the open edges, not the folded edge as this will need to be at the top of the bunting so it sits over the string.

Draw a line from the 3.5cm dot down to the corner of the panel on either side, so you end up with a triangle that looks like this.

Next, cut along the lines with scissors or a knife.  I used a knife to make sure all the pieces of paper underneath didn't move around while I was cutting.  But if you don't have one, you can use scissors.

Repeat these steps again on the other pieces of A4 paper until you have enough triangles for the length of bunting you'd like to create.

Miss 4 drew 'halloween faces' and triangles on our orange pieces, while I cut out the black ones.  We ended up with 15 triangles from 5 pieces of A4 paper, but the quantity is up to you.

The triangles can then be slipped over the string, folded bit at the top.  Once on the string you can glue the two sides of the triangle together so keep them secure.

We decided to staple the top of the triangle too, for added security, but they would probably look better without.

Space them about 3cm apart, or whatever spacing you'd like, and leave a length of at least 40cm at either end to allow for tying.

This method can be applied for any event of course just using different coloured paper.  A great option to have on hand if you find yourself in need of last minute decorations!

Rainbow Streamer Garland Tutorial

I've had a lot of people ask about the rainbow garland I made for the table backdrop at the 'Neon Rainbow' party, so I've written a quick tutorial.

As mentioned in my previous post about the party, I had a rough idea in my head about the look I wanted to create, but had no idea if would work until I started making it.

I started with a packet of 6 rolls of crepe paper streamers, which I cut into lengths of approx 1.4 metres.  I cut one length first then used it to measure the rest of them.

Next I grabbed a length of ribbon roughly 1.6 metres in length, which was the right width for the amount of streamers I had as well as the width of the wall space it would hang on.

I tied each end of the ribbon on my washing line, then started tieing the streamer lengths to the ribbon starting from the middle.  

Now, tieing paper streamers is not that easy.  In hindsight it may have been easier to make this out of ribbon lengths, but I already had the crepe paper streamers, and I haven't come across many neon colours of ribbon.  Depending on the colours you want to use for your own streamer garland, you may want to try this with ribbon.  And if you do, please let me know how you go.

I just tied a simple knot around the top of the ribbon, keeping it really loose so the paper didn't rip, but tight enough that it wasn't going anywhere.  To keep the appearance of the garland uniform, it's important to ensure all knots are facing the same way when you tie them, so they all have the small end sticking up to the same side.  Mine all stuck up to the right simply because that's the way I tied the first one, and did the others to match.

Continuing to tie the streamers from the middle out to the edges, the finished colours ran red, pink, yellow, green, blue, purple.

The garland needed some finessing, to space the streamers all out evenly along the ribbon so they had enough space and were on the right angles to sit flat.

All I did to hang it on the wall was stick a couple of 3M adhesive hooks to the wall with the recommended waiting time, then the garland was hung proudly on the wall.

The hardest part of the whole project was discouraging cheeky Miss 4 year old from running through the garland and pulling on it while I was making it!

If you have a go, please share your photos and feedback with me.