It's no secret that I have a love of bunting, garlands, strings of mini flags and the like. They're such festive decorations they instantly make a place say 'party-time'. They are also generally fast to make. For Mimi's 4th birthday next week, she and I have been busily preparing three sets of bunting. There will be a set of nautical semaphore flags to go over the food table (they're picture is in the Mermaid Party Ebook gallery). We've already done the Jolly Roger pirate flags (you'll see their photo in the gallery for the Pirate Ebook) to go over the pirate craft table and the clam shell bunting for the mermaid party craft table.
Here's a tutorial on how-to do the clam shell bunting, and when I say 'we' I mean Mimi and I, because this project is so easy she was able to assist.
- Buy a packet of large cupcake liners (also called patty pans or paper cake trays) - we used all 100 to make 4 lengths of bunting.
- Fold each one in half and leave under a pile of books for awhile to help them stay flat.
- Measure and cut a piece of coloured twine, string or wool about 1 meter (2 feet) LONGER than the distance you need to drape between.
- Using glue, stick the cupcake liners along the length of the string, making sure that the string is right up against the fold - you can place the cupcake liners close enough to touch, but we left them at intervals approximately a hand-wide to make our liners go further.
- Carefully fold the bunting so that the clam shells are resting on top of each other, wrap the excess string around the bunting, and leave it back under a heavy book to fully dry flat.
- Closer to the party day, hang up using the excess string to make bows or slip knots as preferred.
I considered sticking google-eyes onto the clams, or drawing them on with markers, but decided to leave them plain - you might want to elaborate the idea further - send me photos if you do!
In the photo you'll see our Mermaid Mirror in the background - it makes for a pretty family of craft projects... ah... I can't help but think that the best thing about a cupcake isn't the frosting; it's the versatile liner!
