Artworks: Easy Glitter Bunting

Happy Valentine's! We're are SO excited that our little three-day weekend turned into a five-day break thanks to a lovely little winter storm. We think mom is SUPER happy too. In any event, yesterday, mom was showing us photos of the hearts A Feteful Life made at WestElm's St. Jude charity event this week (WestElm is trying to make the longest heart garland ever and for every heart made, they'll donate $1) and we got to thinking. First we wanted to make our own heart garland. So mom got out a bunch of Valentine's supplies. Then we decided we wanted to decorate just doilies. No problem.

We stuck to our watercolors and loose glitter. We were a little heavy handed on the glue, so mom left them out to dry overnight and strung them up on some baker's twine this morning. They are glinting and glittering in the winter sun! Mom thought it was such a super easy decoration to make because the doilies already have holes in them -- stringing them up took no time at all.

The bunting is up now for Valentine's Day, but we think it would look wonderful for any celebration. Glitter for all!!!

Here's what you need:
- a pack of doilies
- watercolors
- white school glue
- loose glitter
- baker's twine

Just paint your doilies whatever color you'd like. Let them dry just a bit and make a design with glue. Sprinkle glitter liberally. Once they are dry, run the baker's twine through the existing holes on the doilies to make your bunting. Revel in the glitter that will be all over you and your house.

Artworks: Celebration Bunting

September in our house means serious party prep. Daddy's birthday is at the end of the month, Kane's is the beginning of October and mom usually has another October party she styles as well. One of the things we love best about parties, which mom just adores, is that we LOVE to help make party decorations. We ask about 1,000 times a day what we can do to help and mom not only appreciates the help, but thinks it makes for an even better party.

We were all over mom to help her work on a party bunting/banner for my upcoming knights and dragons party, so she printed out a bunch of blank bunting pieces on heavy cardstock and let us go at them with watercolors. We actually tried out a few with markers as well, but we weren't in to filling up all the white space. And while mom generally lets us do whatever we want with our art projects, she knew our artwork wouldn't show well once she hung the bunting up. So we painted a bunch and mom cut them out once they dried. They looked awesome, but we wanted a little more pizazz. Bring on the sequins, baby. 

All three of us sat down for a little sequining party. Some bunting pieces got just a little and mom made sure some really got a whole lot. She taped them on to a string of baker's twine (alternatively, you could make small slits along the top of the bunting piece and run the twine through) and hung the banner up. Even this morning, where the sun seems to be taking its sweet time, they put some sparkle in the house. Love it. 

Mom has already been thinking up all kinds of ways for us to help make reusable celebration buntings, including: 

- "painting" them with bleeding art tissue paper (sort of like this);

- printmaking, which would be a great way to do this with the littlest of littles; and 

- circle printing, maybe with some glitter paint

How about you? What ways to your kids help out with celebratory decorating? If they want to help, you can download our template for large and mini buntings right here -- just click on the link to access the google docs. Happy whatever!