diy fabric garlands

on march 9th i turned 25, which apparently is a milestone so i had to throw a little celebration for everyone who wanted to celebrate it.  obviously being the crafty girl that i am, i wanted to as much DIY decorations as possible.  the first project was fabric garlands, which i started making two weeks prior to the party.  i used all materials that i had laying around the house, which means the cost of this DIY was $0.00.  nice.

materials:

1.  fabric scraps - i used some old free people bags and some scraps of fabric that i found when cleaning out my grandma's sewing room.

2.  ribbon - i had some ribbon left over from when i was doing some ribbon embroidery in college.

3.  thread - any color will work really, it just depends on the colors of your fabrics.  once again i just used some pink thread that i inherited with the sewing machine & table from my grandma.

4.  scissors - i dont think this needs any explanation... although i did use some of my grandma's scissors.

5.  straight pins - any kind will do.

i didn't have a specific length that i wanted to reach, my plan was just to keep adding fabric triangles until i ran out.  i also didn't have any specific size for the fabric pieces, i was just cutting until i had no fabric left.

step 1: cut your fabric!  i just cut out triangles, but you can really do any shape that you can think up.  i was using fabric with some crazy prints (cats in a garden, anyone?) so i wanted my shapes to be pretty simple.

step 2: start pinning.  take a piece of ribbon, about 12" long and pin it on to the first triangle.  pin each triangle overlapping slightly on each corner.  i made two garlands, the first about 14 feet long and the second was twice as long.  obviously i don't own enough pins to pin 14 feet worth of triangles together, plus it would probably get all tangled.  i pinned about 1-2' at a time.

step 3: get sewing!  i chose to use a zig-zag stitch cause i thought it would be a little sturdier than just the plain straight stitch.  keep sewing till you have reached your desired length or you run out of fabric.  at the end sew on another piece of ribbon.  the ribbon will be used to attach each end of the garland to wherever you decide to put it.

and the finished product:

i had a few other quick DIYs for the party, including jar lanterns & a little table i covered in oilcloth.  i also had been saving jars to use flower vases and bottles from french lemonade to put flat water in.  more birthday DIY's coming soon.