DIY Thanksgiving Decor: A Festive Family Bunting

A trendsetter I’m not.

I mean, it took over 2 years before I finally tried on a pair of skinny jeans– which means I’m sure they’ll be out of style by tomorrow.

{seriously, if you are still on the fence about skinny jeans, give them a try!  If my pear shape can wear them, then anyone can.  Plus, they are a great excuse to buy some hot boots}.

Consider yourself warned before I reveal my latest crafty endeavor. I’ve managed to squeeze at least five trends into one project.  I promise that will never happen again.

The project is not terribly original.  Or, with all those trends, probably at all original.  But I liked it enough to show you how easy it is to make in case you want to whip one up for yourself.  This project was also incredibly difficult to photograph thanks to the lighting in my house, so please trust they are much cuter in person {in my humble little opinion, of course.}

Ready?

BOOM.  Count ’em: FIVE trends.

* bunting
* burlap
* gray and yellow
* catchy phrase
* rag ties

What’s a girl to do, I’m so thrilled to be hosting my family for Thanksgiving this year I had to make something special to commemorate the occasion.

I’ve resisted the burlap trend for awhile now.  Aside from the rustic intrigue, I couldn’t quite understand why it was so darn popular.  Then I visited my local fabric store and saw the price tag: about $3 a yard.  Ca-ching!  I’m on the burlap bandwagon, for about a week anyways.

After grabbing my cheap-o yard of burlap, I cut it into six triangles of equal size.

Then, I folded over the top and stitched it across to create a space for the twine.  Using wheat colored thread ensured you couldn’t see the stitches at all.

And YES, that funky way I did my running stitch was a super easy way to do this quickly, if not professionally.

:: snip, snip ::

Next came the letters.  I cut out squares of equal size for each one to make them easier to cut, and coordinating squares for the background.  Don’t hate me, but I freehand cut them.  I wish I could could give you a good tutorial for that part, but honestly I have the world’s worst handwriting but these simple lowercase letters came out just fine.  Lowercase is key; I tried uppercase and they didn’t look right.

If you’d like to do this properly, you could enlarge the letters on the computer, print, cut, and trace.  {Now can you see why my lazy butt simply freehanded them?}

Ironing took care of those wrinkles.

A few dots of fabric glue and they were attached to the background squares.

At first, I simply glued the letter squares to the triangles but the result wasn’t great because of the porous burlap.   So, during the Thanksgiving episode of The New Girl (hilarious, right?) I stitched the squares to the burlap.  It only took that one episode for me to sew all of them, and I felt better on the off chance this little bunting became something I wanted to pull out for Thanksgiving every year.

Using a crochet hook I thread a long piece of twine through the openings…

knotted some pretty fabric in between…

and, we have bunting!

Originally I placed it above the doorway to our dining room, but it didn’t feel right.

Once moved into our living room it felt much more at home, probably because that’s the room where we are mostly likely to gather.  And play.  And laugh, love, toast, smile, read, and giggle.

G-A-T-H-E-R.

Why yes, I think we will.

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