In the spirit of this week’s crafty giveaway, I have a totally awesome craft project to share! I’ve been wanting to post this for literally 2 months, but time just gets away from you sometimes. I’m super excited to share my tutorial for a Painted Onesies Birthday Banner Bunting! (We love alliteration here at Hearts and Laserbeams.)

Wait, what?

What is a Painted Onesies Birthday Banner Bunting?

It’s something I think I made up, guys. And it’s totally awesome. I google searched this craft project, and I don’t think there’s anything out there quite like it.

Last year, Gayle threw a baby shower for me. It was an awesome day full of baby shower activities – snacking, games, snacking, snacking, and painting on onesies. And snacking. I know lots of creative types, and the onesies everyone painted were ridiculously cool:

You got your I’m With Stupid and First Mate onesies painted by Aaryn Nutter and Laura Glover,

a portrait of me by Josh’s uncle Donnie, a fabulous rooster (can anyone remember who did this one? Heather Keiser, I’m looking in your direction… I think it’s yours), a pizza face by my 4 year old neice Lily, and some great stars by Alie Keiser,

and one of my favorites, painted by my brother Brandon, featured an alien being eaten by a shark as his spacecraft sank into the ocean.

There were more painted onesies, tons more.

And they were all awesome.

But they were all size 6-9 months, and Phil grew out of them way too fast. I really hated the idea of putting these onesies my friends and family had made in the too-small-clothes bin in the garage, so I started thinking. What could I do with them to prevent that?

As Phil’s 1st birthday got a little closer and a little closer, we started thinking about his birthday party. And as we talked about location, food, decorations, etc… it came to me. We would turn these hand-painted baby shower onesies into a party banner!

I designed this so it has the painted onesies on one side, and three colors of bright happy solid fabric on the other. When Phil gets older and outgrows the baby-themed art, we can hang it with the solid color side facing out and he still has his own personal birthday banner. I also included a couple of other articles of clothing of Phil’s that I couldn’t bear to put away when he outgrew them. There’s a triangle of the alligator pajamas he wore home from the hospital when he was born, a triangle of his I ♥ My Dad onesie, and a t-shirt he had about spending 9 months in solitary confinement. (Thanks Rich!)

This project was fairly easy to do, and with help from my brother in law and professional sewer Chris Calvert of Seven Seas Canvas, we knocked it out in an afternoon.

Materials Needed:

• Triangle pattern
• Scissors or rotary cutter
• Sewing machine (a walking foot makes for easier sewing over the paint)
• Painted onesies
• Fabric for the backside of the triangles
• Iron
• Teflon sheet or old piece of scrap fabric that can get ruined
• Enough quilt binding to connect all the triangles and have a tail on each end for hanging. (Width of quilt binding depends on your own personal taste, and amount needed will vary depending on how many triangles you have)

How to Make One Yourself:

1. Figure out how many onesies you have, and go through your scrap fabric to find coordinating fabric for the backs of the triangles. Keep in mind that the back side of your bunting is for when your child outgrows the really young, baby-themed art that is typically found on baby shower onesies. Picture an 8-10 year old boy or girl – what would they like on the backside? Will their fave cartoon characters still be popular then? Possibly not. For the most longevity, I’d recommend doing some basic solids or stripes, dots, plaids, something that your kid won’t say is too baby to put up for their bday when they hit their teens. But it’s a party banner, so dont be afraid to use bright happy colors! You’ll need enough fabric to have a backside for every piece of onesie art.
2. Create your triangle template. We can’t provide one here, because literally every onesie is sized and made differently. Some baby shower onesies may be newborn sizes, ours were 6-9 months, the ones you get might be 12 months. Make a triangle that will lay across your onesies just below the neck binding, and comes to a point above the snap crotch. When you’ve made your triangle pattern, fold it in half to make sure your long sides are even. If they’re not, trim em up! Make sure your triangle won’t cut off any major art on any of your onesies. Be patient, the pattern part of this project is important. We redrew our triangle pattern a bunch of times because we wanted to get as much of that epic alien/shark/spaceship onesie onto the triangle as possible.

1. Cut your triangles. You’re only cutting a triangle of the front of the onesie, remember. The rest of the onesie can be put in your scraps pile. Don’t forget to cut triangles of coordinating fabric for the backs!

   

2.  Pin the right sides together of a painted onesie front and coordinating fabric back, and sew along the long edges with a 5/8″ seam. Don’t forget to leave the top edge open so you can turn it right side out! I’ll be honest, we had a rough time sewing some of the onesies, especially the pizza face my neice Lily did. There was just so much paint for the machine to get through. Chris suggested that a walking foot on the sewing machine would have made the job much easier, so there’s a little pointer for ya.
3. Turn your triangle right side out.
4. Press along edges. WARNING: Use an old piece of fabric or a teflon sheet between the painted onesie and the iron or you may ruin both your onesie and your iron! I wouldn’t recommend the old piece of fabric method, because there’s a chance it may stick to your painted onesie once it’s been heated up with the iron. A teflon sheet is your best bet, and is inexpensive to buy off of Ebay. I repeat. Your painted onesie should NEVER come in direct contact with your hot iron. You’ve been warned.
5. Now that your triangle’s turned right sides out, and has been pressed so it lays nice and flat, topstitch along the long edges. Again, Chris recommends a walking foot for ease of sewing over the paint.
   
6. Repeat for all triangles.
7. When all your triangles are finished, lay them out and put them in a nice order. I chose to space out any onesies that were pretty similar in color or theme so there was a nice variety across the whole banner. Then turn all of the triangles over and make sure you like how the backside looks. If you have too many of one or another color sitting right next to each other, spread em out a bit!
8. Pin all your triangles inside the fold of the quilt binding, leaving at least 12″ on each end for hanging. Sew the quilt binding shut along the entire length, including the loose ends.
9. Voila! A fabulous reuseable party decoration that is durable enough for an outdoor location, even if it gets rained out. It’s fun, it’s super cute and original, and you will not believe the awwwwww factor when friends and family see that you took the time to make their baby shower onesie art a permanent part of celebrating your little one’s birthday.

Have you reused your baby shower onesies? What did you do with them?

We spent the weekend carving pumpkins and gettin’ dressed up to visit Josh’s Uncle Donnie, Cousin Michelle and her little boy Thomas out in Riverside for a Halloween festival!

Phil got to experience carving a pumpkin for the first time this year, and judging from his face when he’s got his hand in the midst of pumpkin guts, he was less than impressed. Maybe next year he’ll be more into it. He loved rocking his dragon costume, especially seeing himself in it in the mirror!

Stay safe tonight everyone, make sure you check them apples for razor blades!

About a year ago when I was commuting 40 miles south to Mission Viejo every day to a job that was in a less than positive environment, I started doing Fancy Coffee Friday. Instead of drinking the free coffee at work, I’d detour to the Starbucks on the way to the office, get a medium mocha with no whip cream on top, sigh, and pat myself on the back for making it through another week.

Now, a year later, I’ve kept that little ritual going. Except now I’m doing a job I love with zero commute (except for the occasional drive to L.A. for a meeting), and with the prego-ness I’ve made the temporary switch to Fancy Hot Chocolate Friday. It’s nice that the ritual has a happier tone to it now, a more “YAY it’s the weekend!!!” and less “Good god how am I going to do this again next week” feeling.

Do you have little weekly rituals like that, and what are they? Happy weekending everyone!