Birthday Celebration Flag

We were in full-swing birthday mode for about a week in April. I think my oldest had started to think everyday was her birthday. As part of her birthday decorations I made a celebration flag from a tutorial of a very crafty friend, Vanessa.

My Top 6 Reasons for celebrating this decoration:


6. You could use leftover fabric if you needed to.
5. It is WAY easy to make.
4. It is cute.
3. You can personalize it for birthdays or other celebrations.
2. It is original.
1. It stores really small, so I could make one for every holiday and not feel guilty about taking up too much storage space for decorations.

Thank you, Vanessa for your cute ideas! And to the rest of you, you should really visit her blog and her shop and she's on etsy too - Uptown Jane.

So to start I made 6" squares of 7 fabrics I had chosen at the store. Vanessa used charm packs that are 5" squares, but I made mine bigger because I wanted to and I could seeing how I bought all of my cuts of fabric. On my sparkly fabric, I did 8" squares because they were going to be layered behind some other squares.

Then I ironed them in half. *Note: I should have ironed them outside out. But it worked this way too*

Then I marked them with a pencil from corner to opposite diagonal corner.

Then cut along this mark with pinking shears.

After this was done, I ironed them all flat again.

Then I pulled out a full package of bias tape. And because it was 10:30 the night before my oldest daughter's birthday at this point, I forgot to take any more pictures. I also found out that I had way too many squares for the length of bias tape. But after playing around with the layout of what fabric went where and which ones to leave out, I found a pattern that satisfied me.


I pinned and then sewed it on. If I didn't have the layered flags, I could have done it without pinning, but trying to get everything in line with the layers proved easier with a little pinning. Then I sewed it on the bias tape leaving a little extra on the ends for finishing the ends nicely and tying up to display when done.

Here is the finished product. Vanessa has a better tutorial here. Go check it out!

Birthday Pillowcase

Now that the major holidays are over, our family swings into birthday mode which lasts until Halloween when the major holidays swing back into action. So with birthdays on the mind, mainly that of our almost 3 year-old, I have come up with this simple project.

Growing up we always had this little bear that sat on our dinner plate on our birthdays. It was just a little something to note it was your special day. Here is a twist on that tradition.

We will need:

• 3/4 yard fabric #1
• 1/4 yard fabric #2
• Spool of washable ribbon

Iron your fabric & then cut off selvage edge if you need to resize your fabrics. We want the width of the fabric to be about 42".

Cut ribbon to measure non-selvage length of fabric + 1", about 43".

Pin & sew lengths of fabric together (non-selvage edges). This will now be known as seam A.

Iron seams open. *I was told in my last sewing class the easiest difference to spot in a professional sewing job and a novice one is the professional one will iron all seams and cut all strings.*

Pin & sew new length of fabric creating a border at one end. This is seam B. Once we have sewn this edge, we should have a tube of fabric with a border of fabric #2 at one end.

Iron 3/8" hem into fabric #2. Then pull this down to cover seam & pin & sew.

Now turn tube right-side-out. We need to cover the seam A and the last section of sewing. Pin ribbon on starting a smidgen past seam B. We want the ribbon to just barely cover seam A. Gently sew side of ribbon that covers seam A. If there seems to be extra ribbon, that is okay. Extra is good. When you get to the end fold the extra ribbon under creating a nice edge which matches up with seam B.

Time to sew the other side of the ribbon. There is no need to pin this one as the ribbon is already in place. The concern to watch for is to make sure you are covering the stitching from sewing the border down on the inside. Once this is done, repeat the fold at the end of the ribbon.

Turn the tube back inside-out. Pin the bottom and sew, making seam C.

Cut the corners on a diagonal making sure not to cut the seams. This helps the corners lay better and be bulky when turned right-side-out.






Because I don't have a serger, and have never had much luck using the zigzag method with my machine, I solve my fraying problems with this:

Fray Check is my friend.

Lightly cover all the raw edges with a little Fray Check, making sure not to touch the material that creates the outside of the pillowcase. Fray Check dries hard and if it saturates the main part of the pillowcase, you will have a little rough spot.

Let dry and turn right-side-out.

When it is birthday time at our house, the birthday girl/boy gets to sleep with this special pillowcase the night before and night of their birthday.

Isn't this fun? The red pillow is another one I made 10 years ago. I made one for each of my roommates and myself for Valentines day. The possibilities are endless.

-Aimee