Thursday, July 30, 2009

What To Do With Vintage Linens #9



After a few years of birthdays and celebrations, I was beginning to accumulate quite a collection of those birthday plates and balloons, and streamers, and hats, and...and...and... You get the picture. And of course it was 3 of the spiderman theme and two of the pretty little pony theme, 5 of the thomas the train etc, never enough to reuse on the next birthday, so we would end up with more mismatched birthday themed plates every brithday. And let me tell you, they added up fast. So by the time our number five joined the family, I was beyond tired of spending money to throw it in the garbage only a few hours later. I began to dream up ways to start some new traditions and more permanent ways to celebrate every year without the waste! I made birthday tablecloths, banner, etc., and we now have a birthday "drawer" which stores all our goodies for celebrating!

I can now say that we have not purchased any birthday themed party goods for quite a few years. We had a few birthdays in the mix and match themes before we began our new tradition(nothing like the incredible hulk and barbie to celebrate!-they go together right!?)

This year I finally got around to making the kids all birthday crowns instead of buying the funny little dunce hats with sweet little cartoon characters on them. And I have been waiting to write about it until the last of our kiddos birthdays had passed. So we are officially birthday free until the new year. The crowns ended up being a work in progress and changed with each new birthday. And even though I changed the design and learned new things along the way, no one wants me to make a new one for next year-they want to keep their original.



All of the crowns were made from bed sheets. The girls had the fun flower power, happy prints, Noah's was made from solid bed sheets, and Cole's was of course made from vintage Star Wars sheets(although, he is simply being a good sport by wearing it-he is of course too old for this now:)-



Josie's was the first I made, therefore I was way off on the height-but hey! She is just very royal and quite the queen! I did use a stiffener in it, but later found that a simple fusible interfacing was plenty to keep it's shape. All of the crowns were quilted, most being free motion. The quilting also helps them to keep their shape. I must be completely honest and say that on two of the crowns I cheated and used fabric off the bolt to line them. Just couldn't resist how it looked! By the time we arrived at Madison's Birthday, I had finally gotten the height just perfect.



Most of the crowns will last for quite a few years as far as sizing goes. There are so many options when it comes to making them fit for multiple years! You can make them to tie in the back or put in and elastic band in. And as far as the design goes, the possibilities are endless. Just one more way to use those fun vintage bed linens!

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