February 13, 2012

Crepe Paper Party Garland!



When decorating for "my favorite things" party, I decided it was only appropriate to do so using my favorite color - lime green. I love this electric color, yet I seldom have an acceptable reason to use it. My use of this bright, albeit obnoxious, color is mostly limited to infant clothing and party decor. And maybe touches of lime in my blog design. 

So when the opportunity arose to utilize this favorite color of mine, I went all in. Everything was lime green. All of the disposable party ware (stuff I was going to buy anyways) was all lime green - the plates, the napkins, the tablecloth. 

For an additional punch of color, I draped a few strands of pink and lime party garland from our chandelier. It was loud. It was obnoxious. And I absolutely loved it!  

To make the garland, sew two or more layers of crepe paper with the longest stitch length your sewing machine offers (this could also easily be done by hand). Remove length of streamer from machine an carefully pull on one of the threads to gather the paper. The scrunching process is a give and take. Be careful not to break your thread.

I preferred the vibrant colors and fuller ruffle provided by four layers of crepe - two green on top of two pink. I also experimented with stitch location. For the center stitched strands, I gently folded the paper along the middle before pulling the thread to gather.

To make a longggg strand of garland, keep crepe attached to the roll and feed into your machine as shown below. Scrunch from the back of your machine as you stitch along.


Don't worry about precision. Go ahead and speed stitch your crepe paper together. Your garland will actually have more dimension if your crepe layers are not perfectly stacked. 

Want to save these instructions for later? Share it with your friends on Pinterest:Pin It


The inspiration for this project came while researching how to make these crepe paper flowers, and this crepe paper hair bobby pin (click for source). The intermediate step of both these projects has you create a long string of what I like to call party garland. I found the garland to be so beautiful, that I never did end up making the crepe flowers I was originally searching for.


Read all about hosting a "Favorite Things Party" HERE

Linked up at Sew Much AdoOopsey Daisy, Positively Splendid, Tatertots and Jello, Lines Across, Small Things

8 comments:

  1. I love your party garland, how fun! It's always nice to save a few extra steps too. :) Thanks for the link to my crepe paper flowers!

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  2. Hey Shelby! It's Amy from Sugar and Spice, I came over to check you out and follow you back with LF! Love your blog! Keep in touch! Please let me know what you thought if the disciplines of a beautiful woman book after you read it :). Have a great day!

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  3. So glad I found your lovely blog. I'm following you with the new Linky tool, straight from the Linky blog hop. I look forward to getting to know you better, Lori

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  4. This is so cute. Following you back from Linky Followers.

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  5. What FUN party decor, and those bright colors are lovely!! Thanks for sharing at oopsey daisy!

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  6. This is such a fun idea! Pinning it to use for my daughter's first birthday party. :)

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  7. I love these!! I've been sewing ruffles for awhile now and never thought of doing 4 layers! I'll have to try that. :)

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  8. So cool--just put it through the sewing machine--genius!
    Thanks for linking up to the oldies party this week--the new party will be live on Monday night.
    Nancy

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