Easy How to: Insta-Bunting!

Ok gang, this is super super easy and you just need a few items and about 15-20 minutes to make super duper sweet bunting.

We made this fun bunting to decorate the Dowdy Studio Wagon for it's big showing in Austin for SXSW. Now we're showing you! It's great for decorating for parties or for permanent home deco.

So if you wanna make some go get these supplies:

- Fabric Glue

- Quilt Binding (3 yrds = 9 ft)

- Pins

- Multi colored Fabric

- Fabric Scissors

Optional

- Chester the kitten/intern (not recommended)

Step 1 - Cut some triangles and strips. I freehand cut mine, but you can easily make your own templates out of a piece of paper or find one online to use. I decided to change up the standard triangle bunting by adding some ribbon shapes too. Yeah! We're getting fancy, shake it!

Step 2 - Now that you have all your pieces cut, begin placing them in the quilting tape. I started the bunting about 10 inches in so there would be some extra quilt binding on the ends to tie around the Wagon. Unroll the quilt binding and unfold the first fold to place the top of each fabric piece inside the top crease of the folded quilt binding. It's good to lay out about 4 pieces at a time. Anymore and it gets messy, and you'll be yelling at the bunting for being such a mean bully face and getting all crazy on you. Just a warning.

Step 3 - Glue party fancy time!! We used Liquid Stitch fabric glue. This stuff is great. It dries fast and holds strong. This is how we can get this bunting done in 15-20 min. Slide down one fabric piece and draw a line of glue across the back part of the quilt binding, place the fabric piece back in place over the glue line, then draw another glue line on top of the fabric piece and lay the top part of the

quilt binding over it.

Step 4 - Press firmly on the quilt binding for about 3 seconds. This stuff dries pretty fast, so make sure you have the fabric piece in place exactly how you want it before you press down. Now get back up there to step 2 and repeat until you finish your bunting.

Step 5 - Done. Awesome!

Step 6 - Get Chester to check your handmade bunting for quality. He approved this one, which is good. When he doesn't like them he gets his claws in them and runs around the house with them.

Step 7 - Hang it! If you're decorating for a party and you're done early....uh, grab a pre-drinky to celebrate! You did great.

If you've made some homemade bunting, we'd like to see! Share with us in the comments section below what you made.

Cheers!

-Pamela _ Dylan

Let's get our wrap on: Holiday How To

Today's lesson: How to avoid buying wrapping paper.

Here at the Dowdy House, we do our best to put a little creativity into everything we do. So when it came to wrapping our Christmas presents, we decided it would be best to find some things around the house to wrap them in, instead of spending extra money and stressing out buying wrapping paper at the already overcrowded stores.

So it being Christmas Eve, and with the stores shutting their doors before you can get in there to purchase that last minute roll of wrapping paper that you forgot to get last Tuesday, we'll share with you our little How To avoid buying wrapping paper and doing it yourself.

Step 1: Gather your materials

+ Some kind of paper. We had an extra roll of packaging paper left over from something we did earlier this year, but old newspapers, magazines, junk mail or a pile of papers out of your recycling bin will do the trick too.

+ Scissors - for cutting

+. A Sharpie!! If you're cool and have different colors of Sharpies, grab them all to make your gifts even more festive!

+ Tape - for taping the things you cut.

Step 2: Wrap your gifts with your found paper.

Step 3: Grab your Sharpies and decorate!!

We chose to draw on fake bows and ribbons, then fill in the paper with pretty designs. Just a simple stripe or dot pattern can be real cute. Don't forget to draw in a fake tag to write who it's to and from.

When you're all done, you should have some really fun and unique presents to give to your friends and family. Maybe they'll even save the wrapping paper to keep.

Cheers and Happy Merry Christmas

from Dylan and Pamela!