Cheerful Bunting How-To

I've been saying since I started at the Milk Market last year that I must make some bunting for my stall and yesterday I eventually got around to making some. I had a good root through my fabric collection to find yellow and blue prints, as I wanted the colours to match my sun and cloud logo. I then made a cardboard template, cutting my fabric 1cm bigger all the way around. I cut out two triangles for each piece as my fabric is only one sided. You could use felt or a vinyl if you wanted to make faster bunting where no hemming is necessary. Or earlier this year I made newspaper bunting for Johns birthday party, by ripping the papers with a metal ruler and sewing the section onto some white ribbon on my sewing machine. It only took about an hour to make 20 meters of bunting....super fast for a large party....and also nice if it's for a guy as it's not too girlie.

I then sewed a straight running stitch most of the way around, and then turned them inside out, and stitch around the edge in a straight stitch. This means I'll me able to bung them in the washing mashing without them fraying. If you are making bunting for a once off occasion there is no need to go to all that extra effort, but I need mine to last for at least another year or so.

After you have all you triangles done, then co-ordinate them in a bundle, thinking about what colours and patterns would look well next to each other, trying to keep it balanced through your whole string of bunting. Then find a spacer, I used a paint brush, something that will help to give you a consistent gap between all of your panels. I used a zigzag stitch to attach the panels.

Voila! Here is my bunting at long last, an idea that's been brewing for ages has eventually come to fruition. Excuse the photo of my bedroom...I had nowhere else to hang it from to show you guys.

Shrinky Dinks...how have I lived without them before??

It was about 2 months ago that I first spotted 'Shrinky Dinks' in some craft tutorial online. I was totally fascinated by them, and the more research I did they seemed too good to be true. Basically they are a plastic that you draw on, stick them in the oven for a couple of minutes and they get 7 times smaller and 7 times thicker!! They go from a thickness like ascetate to a sturdy clear plastic. There are endless possibilities, from earrings, card embellishments, ornaments etc etc. Apparently they are huge in the US and all American kids play with them, but I had never heard of them before or seen them in any craft shop here.

I tried to order some directly from the website but they were going to charge me $40 shipping on a really small item. Instead I had a look on ebay and found 'Shrinkles', a 'shrinky dink' substitute, the same product but with far more affordable shipping.

I got the transparent and opaque versions, both in packs of 50 for a total of about 20 euro. To get a decent sized image I used an entire sheet per piece. For the transparent shrinkles I had to use 'Sharpie' markets, I was able to get a set of these in my local craft shop Silkes for 10 euro. But for the opaque ones regular colouring pencils are fine.

I was delighted with how they turned out, shrinking an image always makes it look way better as the detail is condensed. I included a euro coin in the photos so you can get an idea of the change in scale. I'll be using these for making greetings cards, but I think I'll be making myself some new earrings too! Also since they are transparent they would be very easy to trace images if you are not that confident at drawing. I felt like a little kid when I was making them, I brought all my pencils and markers down to the market, it certainly kept me happy and occupied for the day.

Moonlighting at Etsy Ireland

Over the next month or so I will be helping out a great deal with the Etsy Ireland team blog, organising posts, inviting people to write article, and writing quite a few of them myself. So firstly if you're reading this and you've never checked it out then pop over, it's a great collection of Irish etsy crafters showing their wares, giving tips and generally talking about crafty things. There is the loose structure of

Introducing Modays: where a new seller introduces themselves and there work.
How-to-Tuesday
I'll show you mine Wednesday: artists show us a view into their studios
Tricks of the Trade: inside tips of crafting, and a guide to some supplies sellers around Ireland, I'm really looking forward to doing one in Limerick.
Fresh 5 picks on Friday

I'm delighted to be working with the team, I love blogging and writing, so it will be good to get my teeth into a new project!!!
Update: Check out my first post here....a tutorial in photoshop design.....jeez it took a while to do it but I'm really happy with my first ever tutorial, next time I may do something simpler....feedback would be great, go check it out!!