DIY Fabric Garland

Here is a simple and gorgeous DIY that I helped Steph make for her wedding. We made long garlands for her day, and Rob and I had spiral ones for our day. Either way they are easy to make, and make such a beautiful statement. They can be personalized to your wedding or party colors and you can make them for a bargain, or you can splash out and they will cost a little more.

Like I said, these were for a wedding, but you could use them at a baby shower, hens night, birthday party, or truth be told, I just want one for above my head board of my bed!

Here is what we used,

A couple of yards of 6 different fabrics. Three accent colors from their wedding color scheme, a crepe chiffon, creme lace and white embroidered cotton.

Base for the garland, we used a heavy duty twine (see notes below for alternatives).

Here is what we did,

Cut fabric into strips of varying thickness, the thickest were one inch across, the skinniest were half and an inch. 

The fabric was one yard in width, and I cut it lengthways. 

When you have a pile of each colored fabric, start by deciding if you want a pattern or just a whimsical mix. 

One color at a time, I tied the fabric strips along the twine, mixing them along the length of the garland. To make a longer strand you can tie the strip at one end, and to make a fuller looking and shorter garland you can tie them at the center.

The lace strips have a sweet vintage feel while the chiffon sparkled in the light.  

Options - 

Now, Steph bought her fabrics and splashed out. They were stunning colors, and a beautiful lace. We did another set with ribbons too. If you wanted to go that route, the advantages are that you can get the exact colors you want, and you can get the exact amount you want. The ribbon one needs a lot of spools to fill in the garland significantly so can get really pricey fast. 

If you want to get a bargain, I suggest you try looking at second hand and thrift stores for fabric scraps, sheets and old linen. Or, I had great success looking through the scrap and clearance bin at Spotlight (Aus, NZ), in the US you could try Joanne's, Michael's or Hobby Lobby. 

You can change the length, fullness, and shape of these garlands. For spiral ones, which hang in a large circle, I used a dog frisbee (odd I know), but it was basically a large plastic ring. For Stephs day we used heavy duty twine so they could be hung from trees and tables.

Photography Friday: Our Love Story

Happy Valentines Day Y'all.
I thought I would get a little lovey over here since blogland is going crazy for V day, and has been for nearly a month!

A lot of bloggers have a story of how they met their partner.. And then their wedding day. I thought I might go ahead and share mine with you.

So, here I go.

___________________________________________

Rob and I met in 2005, when we were both at Waikato University in New Zealand. We met in the back of my friends car. We had a mutual friend who convinced me to come out to a quiz night with him and his brainy mates. That night Rob and I clicked. Like, really clicked. But, we were pretty drunk and at the time he had a girlfriend and I had a boyfriend. So nothing happened. I carried a torch for him secretly for the next while, but figured that he wasn't interested and got back to my relationship, which the wheels were falling off of pretty fast.

In May 2006, the day after I broke up with my boyfriend Rob texted me out of the blue. If you know Rob, you will know that is pretty out of his character, so I was quite shocked. He said that he was going out tonight, and was asking if I would be going out too. And that maybe we could meet up. We started hanging out a lot and friends took bets as to when we would hook up. Which, quite satisfyingly we had been without them knowing. At one point (quite famously, as this was bought up at our wedding), Shannon finally asked Rob what was happening to which he replied, "well lets just say, I am hitting that".

At my 21st in 2006

Six months into us officially being together, I got a job over summer that would mean I would be away all week, but home in the weekend. So, I moved in with Rob. We had the weekends together and I was away with my best mate during the week. It was hard, but much easier than some long distance arrangements. When the summer finished we decided I should stay, and we have been loving together ever since.

At the end of Masters exams, 2007

In 2009 we moved to Perth, and started a life there.

On the way to Albany in 2010

In March 2010 we were laying on the couch watching a movie talking about the future. We knew that we only wanted to be with each other, but weren't really in a rush to be married. We started throwing dates around,
"I like January",
"Well I like February",
"what day do you like?"
"I like the number 8",
I like the number 12"
 ... and somehow decided that we would be married on January 12th, 2013. We lay there a little bit longer and then started giggling. Had we just decided to get married? A few nights later I was talking to Liz, and telling her our conversation.
She started screaming "You're engaged!!!!",
"holy shit, you are right... oh my god I am engaged!!!!!!" I screamed back.
We kept it on the downlow, deciding we would wait to tell everyone in person and buy the ring when we went home in December.

 In September my parent visited, and we told them. On Chirstmas day we told my family, and on Boxing Day we drove to Robs family Christmas at Ohope. Mum and Dad came with us, and after we sat down for Christmas lunch, Rob told his family we were engaged. After much celebrating and drinking and smiling and hugging we bought our the ring in Tauranga.

On the way to break the news on Boxing Day

We went back to Perth after that trip and had an amazing engagement party with our Perth family. And, we began planning our day.

At our engagement party

In mid 2012, we found out that I had been accepted into a program for work which would see us moving to the States for 2 years. Wanting to alleviate the legal sides of the move, and the boring, legal part of our wedding day we decided to have an early registry wedding. This also solved our problem of not being able to celebrate our day with all the people in Perth who had become like family to us. We were officially married on September 7th 2013. Eight years after we first met in our friends car. Seven years after we first kissed.

In January 2013 it was time to make "us" even more official and announce our love and commitment to our family and friends back home. I walked down the aisle to my beautiful husband, and declared how much I love him in front of the people that shaped us into who we are today.

At Wairaka, in Whakatane on our special day

We are now a year into our Texas adventure, and into our second year of marriage. Maybe it was the way we eased into our engagement, and then eased into our marriage, or maybe our challenges will come later, but we didn't have that hard first year of marriage people talk about. I know everyone is different, but I can honestly say that I love my husband, he is my best friend, and my rock. Without him I would be lost.

At home, Christmas 2013

At the moment our focus is on traveling as much as we can while we are here in America, and preparing ourselves to start a family. 

In Geneva, 2013

Next year, we will be moving back to Perth to start a new chapter.. I am eager to see what we do.

To be continued...

___________________________________________

So, that is our story so far. There are far more details, but that is a general overview. A lot of the things we have done were not traditional, but they were right for us, and who we are. And we are happy, which seems like the most important thing to me.

Relive the smiling - Day 11 of Blogtember

My first thought - our wedding days. 

Especially the one in New Zealand with our friends and family. The week leading up was so much fun, and the day was amazing! Surrounded by people we love in the beautiful Ohope sunshine. Perfect! 

Check out our beautiful photographer's website here.


Today's post is in response to the Blogtember prompt "What memory would you like to relive?". You can check out Jenni from "Story of my Life" blog for more info.

Wedding Photobooth - How to make it even more awesome!!

We were so excited to have a photobooth for our wedding!

We contemplated doing it all sorts of ways, but ended up going with a local photobooth company, and doing the prop shopping ourselves. We totally reccomend the people here...

http://www.theamazingtravellingphotobooth.co.nz/

Communication was great, the technician was super friendly and it was a vintage upcycled booth! Perfect!

Photo booth being set up!

My list of ideal props for a photo booth that is a little different:

Vintage trucker caps

Old sun glasses

Cat ears

Mickey mouse ears

Chalkboard hearts to write messages on

Flower crowns

Flower lei

I scoured Etsy, local second hand stores, dollar stores, and costume stores for all the goodies..

 

Set up:

We used a vintage suitcase and basket for all the props to sit in.. It looked super cute on the guest book table. We had an old lamp and a lace tablecloth to make things a little more vintage.

Backdrops

If we hadn't used a professional photo booth we were going to set up our own.. Here are a list of links that we considered purchasing back drops from some great stores on Etsy.. I have a lot of links here on my pinterest page: http://pinterest.com/geobadgergirl/photobooth-ideas/ 

Putting it all together:

So the BEST thing about our photo booth was that the photos that were printed out came in doubles. The photo booth technician stuck one copy into the guest book, and gave the other copy to the person in the photo.. So, now we have a guest book full of funny, cute, sweet and personal messages and photos from our big day!! 

For the book itself we considered all sorts of different guest books. Etsy has so many beautiful handmade books you can choose from. Then, to fit with our personal theme, I thought that maybe a vintage text book or encyclopedia would be a great background for the photos... While searching through an old book store with beautiful Liz, I came across an old copy of "the Oxford book of Marriage"... Serendipity. I couldn't have planned it better. 

On a shelf in our lounge we have the Oxford book of marriage, and when you take a look inside it is full of photos from our big day - perfect!!

Bunting for Badgers

My favorite thing ever.

BUNTING!

So it has become clear to me that "bunting" as a general art, is not that well known, and has been left behind to some extent in the world of Enid Blyton and the Famous Five. I adore bunting. It is so cute and can be used to decorate any situation. Weddings. Bedrooms. Baby showers... Um, garden partys..? Maybe not any situation I guess. Not so good at a gym or a funeral.

Anyway, my goal for the bunting was to have a cute, vintage decoration for my wedding.The photo below is a shot of our marquee with the bunting hung around the outside. Cool huh?

Our beautiful marquee.

Here is how I created my beautiful bunting...

Firstly, I must give massive credit to Josie Crafter who has a great buntingtutorial at http://www.myhomemadehappy.com/?p=54
Her instructions are super clear and made this project easier..
A great start for your bunting project, have a read through and use this with my notes below to create some fantastic bunting of your own.

After I printed off her tutorial, I read over it several times. For my triangles, I used Microsoft Word to draw a few different sizes. This ensures they are symmetrical and gives you an idea of how big you would like them. The triangle I ended up using had a base of 14 cm and a length of 25 cm.

After printing these I traced the triangle onto some manila folders (any card will work, the heavier the card the longer it will last if you are an extreme bunter).

Fabric Choice  

The theme for the wedding was blue and white, so naturally these were the shades I was after. What I found worked well was one block colour of a deep blue, one all white fabric and then 4 different blue and white patterns. I bought some fabric from Bali when I was there for a weekend, and I bought the rest of the fabric from spotlight. 

Some of my fabric choices.. I love the royal blue!

Depending on how eclectic or vintage you want the bunting, I suggest searching through the sale bins at fabric stores and checking for fabric cuts and linen from vintage stores or second hand stores. My favorite fabric was in the scrap bin at the store and cost $4 for 10 metres!

The long part... 

So here is when you need your fabric, a pen, pins, your triangle, and some close friends and a glass of wine.

Chandon. Essential crafting tool.

I found the most time efficient method for cutting out the triangles was an assembly line of sorts.

Person 1 - lie fabric pattern up on the floor. Measure 25 cm (the long length of your triangle) along each side and fold this over.Pin all along this folded zone.

This means that you can draw your triangle on and when you cut it, you cut 2 triangles.

Excellent scissor skills Liz. Some triangles that have been cut from the royal blue are pinned and sitting on the table.

After Friend 1 (we will call her, Liz) has made this fold and pinned it, she can trace the triangle shapes, one after the other along the fold so that you get fabric with 10 or more triangles lined up. 

Tracey having a wedding magazine break in between drawing triangles.

Friend 2 (lets call her Tracey) can cut out the triangles, keeping the pairs pinned together to make sewing easier later.

This is where you can be sitting at the sewing machine making the pennants for your bunting.

Take the 2 triangles (which should be pinned together, patterns facing inwards),and sew along the first long edge, and turn it to sew the other side. If you are doing many at a time you can just grab the next one and keep going. 

Triangles in stitching mode.

Friend 3 (in this story her name is Iris) can collect the triangles and cut along the point of the triangle, so that when you fold them inside out, the point is pronounced rather than kind of squashed. Friend 3 can also do the turning inside out. I suggest using a pointy thing (we used kebab sticks and cuticle pushers) to push the point of the pennant out so you get a nice triangle, again rather than having a squishy, ugly end. 

Some beautiful, finished pennants. These are all ready to be pinned.

If you have more than 3 friends, then good on you! This is lucky in general and can make this process easier. 

Friend 4 is vital. Friend 4 needs to be the pourer of wines, DJ, snack preparer and all round transporter between steps.

Now, don't be fooled. This took us many Saturday afternoons, the last of which ended in Friends 1 and 2 ironing the pennants with the card templates inside to keep their shape, while Friend 3 pinned the pennants into the bias. Keep an inch spacer between each flag. I cut an inch wide piece of card to slip in between the flags. Friend 4 will need to be happy to use the sewing machine ( so not too drunk) and stitch the pennants in.

Bias tape: I suggest using plain white bias tape - buy in bulk - I paid way too much for a few metres at a fabric store, then bought 50 m online for $10.

I suggest planning a few craft days with your friends, stocking up on Chandon and brie. We had so much fun on our 'bunting and champagne dates", just down sip and stitch for too long. This could be hazardous. 

We ended up making nearly 60 metres of bunting, which coincidentally ended up being nearly the exact outside measurement of our marquee - perfect. This was a long term project, which I could not have down without the help of my beautiful friends. I have kept it for future parties, and maybe a baby badger room in the future. 

This was one of the most satisfying and beautiful projects from my wedding. It looked amazing when it was up. I hope these notes have helped your creations, I definitely recommend making some bunting!

Carey Conn Photography, http://careyconn.co.nz/