No-Sew Bunting

I had my first baby shower over the weekend and I have already posted the highlights on the baby blog. Everything was beautiful but not overly cutesy so be sure to check it out.

One of my favorite decorations from the shower was the adorable fabric bunting that we strung up between my living room and dining room.


It was fairly easy to make so I thought I would share a quick how-to with you.



I'm sure there are lots of ways to make your own bunting, but here's what worked for us.

Materials:

2" wide ribbon

fabric scraps

tacky glue, or other glue suited for fabric crafts

1 sheet of cardstock, any color

Tools:

iron and ironing board

ruler

fabric scissors or rotary cutter

heavy books, to use as weights

Directions:

1- Measure your space and determine how long you want your bunting to be. We made 9.5' of bunting for an 8' opening. Cut ribbon to length.

2- Fold your ribbon in half, width-wise, and crease with an iron. We used grosgrain ribbon. It didn't crease as well as I had hoped, but it got the job done. The crease allows you to line up all fabric triangles evenly and provides 2 surfaces for gluing.

TIP: If you are going to hang your bunting against a wall and not across an opening, you can skip this step and use 1" ribbon. The result will be an unfinished backside.

3- Determine how many triangles you will need for your ribbon length and create a triangle template with your cardstock. At this point, decide if you want your triangles to touch or if you want to allow for spacing between the triangles. Our triangles were 6" wide at the base and 6.75" long from base to point, and were arranged with no gaps. We found that if our triangles were too thin (longer than they were wide) the fabric would be too floppy and the bunting wouldn't hang flat.

4- Using the cardstock template, trace triangles onto your fabric. If your fabric has a geometric print, make sure you like how the pattern 'lays' on your triangle. Cut out your triangles and iron if necessary.

5- Lay your creased ribbon on your ironing board with the crease facing away from you. Run a bead of glue along the inside of the ribbon and place your triangles on the ribbon with the base tucked all the way into the crease.

6- Once all triangles have been placed, run a second bead of glue on top of the triangles and fold the ribbon down onto the glue to create a binding. You may want to glue the ribbon together several inches beyond the triangles to give it a more finished look. We ran our glue 3" past the triangles on both ends.

7- On a flat surface, place your heavy books on top of the ribbon to hold it in place while it dries.

8- Once the glue is dry, you may choose to trim the ends of your ribbon to prevent fraying.

9- Hang and enjoy!

So that's it. We could have made the bunting with a sewing machine rather than glue, but we wanted something quick and easy for the party. Do you think you'll give this a try?