{Mini Heart Bunting}

Guest Blogger: {Allyson Drake, Pullin' on my heart strings..}

I am so in love with mini buntings right now. You can make them for any occasion, in any size, and in any color… especially when you use paint chips! Not only are they free (Fabuless!), they come in every color imaginable! As inconspicuous as I tried to be with a whiney toddler in my cart, I probably spent a good 10 minutes mixing and matching colors. I’m pretty sure the nice Lowe’s employee was on to me, but kindly looked the other way. Though, if I saw a crazy lady stuffing paint chips in her purse like they were candy, I’d probably look the other way too.
Once I got my paint chips home, I used a small heart punch and cut out over 100 hearts. Because my punch was rather small, I got 6 hearts from one sample (2 hearts of each of the 3 colors). You can find hand held punches at any craft store. I got mine from Michael’s and used a 40% off coupon I found online (they usually have one available every week. Michael’s can be fabuless!). With my next coupon I want to invest in a circle one. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up with a circle bunting for every holiday.

After punching out hearts (sounds gruesome for this time of year), I glued two hearts in the same color, back to back so that both sides were colored. It’s not necessary, but these things tend to spin a little once they’re hung, and I didn’t want “Lowes” to be the center of attention. Just a quick dab of glue stick works, since they will be sewed together anyways.
When they were glued and ready, I quickly figured out a pattern and fed them through my sewing machine. A quick tip if you are trying this at home: If you don’t want your hearts to spin, you can overlap them a little. It does make the bunting a little stiffer.


If you like the spinning, moveable, flexible effect, here’s what you do: once you’ve stitched your way across the majority of a heart, slide your next one in place and push the current heart through with the new one like so:

I used 52 of my 116 hearts, and it is more than long enough for my 6’ shelf. These hearts were about 1.5” each, so the size of your punch will determine how many paint chips you’ll need to smuggle out of your local paint aisle.

Have a fun, heart punching Valentines week!

sincerely fabuless, Allyson in Philly.