A Star-Spangled (Paint Chip) Banner - Tutorial

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To celebrate the 4th of July this year, I made my own Star-Spangled Banner:

(Also check out this festive Korker Cake Garland I made for the 4th, my first guest post over at The CSI Project!)

If my mantle looks familiar, you've seen it before with the paint chip Easter egg garland, which was inspired by Modern Parents, Messy Kids.

I'm writing up my own tutorial on this one, since I used a sewing machine instead of doing it by hand. I realized recently how much I dislike sewing by hand! If you've used a sewing machine, you should be able to do this project since it's just a basic straight stitch. If not, do it by hand and it will be just as cute!

What you need to make a Star-Spangled (Paint Chip) Banner:

paint chips in red, white and blue 

scissors

cardboard to cut out a star-shaped template

sewing machine (optional)

white thread
double-sided tape for hanging

I used 21 paint chips total, 7 of each color. Don't worry if some of the red paint chips look pink--you will get the overall look of red, white and blue when it all comes together.

First you want to make yourself a star-shaped template out of your piece of cardboard. I traced one of Little Sweet's star shapes from a foam puzzle, then tweaked the size a bit to fit 2 stars on each paint chip. You could also draw your own or print out a star shape from Photoshop.

You want the white line to be close to the widest part of your star since you'll be sewing directly over that white line to give it some stability:

Trace the star shape onto your paint chips and cut out as many as you want for your banner.

Then admire how patriotic all the stars look:

Okay back to work. It's time to sew now. I had more red and blue stars than white so I used a pattern of red-blue-red-blue-white, repeat.

There are a couple of ways you can sew these together as far as the spacing goes. I tried both and you'll see my results in a minute. The first way is to line them up right next to each other as you sew so they're close together and overlapping just a bit.

Or you can leave a small amount of space in between each star as you sew so they're more spread out. You don't want the gap to be too big because it will be more likely that they'll flip upside down when it's hanging.

I think I like the spread-out look better but the side that I made close together was definitely easier to hang. Can you see the difference?

While you're sewing, be careful how the already-sewn stars fall since you don't want a big jumbled mess when you're done. Then find somewhere to hang your Star-Spangled (Paint Chip) Banner!

So festive and easy to make. This is a quick 1-naptime craft for all you mommies out there!

Think about all the possibilities with this craft: You could make stars to hang above baby's crib as a mobile (double-sided so the backs are pretty too), decorate a birthday party table in your theme colors (sewn together as a banner or just as giant star-shaped "confetti")... so many options.

I'd love to see your version if you make one--leave a comment with your link if you blog about yours!