DIY like a laxative

as i was talking with one of my pain patients, i hear a mix of liquid and gas bubbles exploding into his colostomy bag. i guess i reacted, and he says, "they just gave me something to move my bowels and i think my pain is all gone now."  oh boy. 

getting the courage to start a DIY project is like a laxative.

you make the decision to just go for it, pop in the pill, and let it take its course.

and once you let loose and finish your project, you are so relieved -

regardless if the end product is pretty or ugly. 

that's how i felt with my very 1st DIY task:

fabric poms & fabric banners for my daughter's 1st birthday party.

although i spent way too many hours late at night cutting and gluing with an alarm clock of 4:30am approaching, i was surprised to feel so content with the way everything turned out. 

being an amateur with design, i learned a lot along the way, and i hope i can give you some tips to save some time and money!



i ended up making 15 banners - sorry i don't have more pics!



Fabric Poms - detailed pic to come!

there's a great tutorial on once wed that i followed, but a few tips that may help:

• try to get the smallest chinese lantern you can find - otherwise it will take too much fabric and time to glue together
• i ended up using about 3 yards for each fabric pom with an 8" chinese lantern - considerably more fabric than i had anticipated
• there's a time commitment of about 2-3 hours for each fabric pom if you complete it in one sitting

Fabric Banner

after looking at a few different banners online, i decided to go the easier route and avoid sewing.  i went with baker's twine, heatbond iron-on adhesives, fabric in blue/pink theme, and iron-on black letters from a craft store.

• to create about 10 10ft banners, you only need 1 yard of 5 different fabrics - my mistake was overestimation
• choose your fabric wisely since you want both sides of the fabric to be identical (not a faded pattern on the back of a print fabric) and avoid thin fabrics if you are using adhesives
• for a clean, crisp look, measure out 2 inches with a pencil between your fabric pendants instead of arbitrarily placing the pendants on the twine

happy DIY!