Birthday Banner

A friend of mine (Cristina) had made one of these for her family and I just loved it.  What a cute little tradition to get this out for every birthday!  So I made one in time to have out for Jayden's birthday, which is on Friday.

It's made out of felt so it's super easy!

And it accordion folds so nicely!  I plan to keep it with my tablecloths and then it will be easily accessible.

I bought a 1/4 yard of all the colors I wanted and had plenty left over.  So I asked Liz if she wanted to make one too and passed on the extra felt to her.  And I bought 1 package of extra wide (1/2" inch) double fold bias tape for the top.  I thought it might be cute to make my own with cute colorful fabric, but that was too much trouble to deal with right now.  (And after I opened the bias tape I wished I had made my own, it would have been a little more perfect than the ones you can buy.  But it would take more time to make.)

You can use fabric glue to attach your letters, but I decided to sew mine on.  I have this colorful thread that changes color every couple of inches and I never use it and so I used it to sew these letters on.  I wanted to upload some close ups of letters to show you, but blogger won't let me at the moment.  Sorry!

I had also thought after I sewed the bias tape on with white thread I would use that same colorful thread to sew a train across the bias tape.  My sewing machine (which was my grandmothers) has a cute little train stitch.  But I decided I don't like sewing on the bias tape and I just wanted to be done.  Maybe one day I'll go back and do it.  And maybe one day I'll go back and spruce it up a bit too.

For the triangle, I did mine 7" wide and then 9" inches down.  I don't remember what size letter I used but I'm sure you can figure that out and do what you want if you choose to make one.  When I put the triangles under the bias tape I put them up as far as I could under the fold and I had the tips of the triangles touching, which makes it easier to fold and creates an even balance between triangles.

I was thinking on the one I left blank in between the words, that I can cut numbers out of felt or just print it on paper, and attach them to coordinate with the year of their birthday.  For instance, Jayden will be 5 on Friday so I'll print "5th" or cut out a "5" from felt to put there.

I'm very excited to hang this up for Jayden's birthday and all birthdays to come.  And I hope my kids look forward to it every year too.  Thank you Cristina for the wonderful idea!