Homemade Streamers from Junk Mail

Hello Friends!

I think I mentioned before that we're having a talent show the night before our wedding.  We think this will be a great time for our family members to get to know each other, share laughter, and have fun.  We're having the talent show in the living room of the bed & breakfast we're getting married at, and we decided to decorate the room with fun streamers, twinkle lights, and a table of yummy candies and treats.  Mark and I are making our wedding as eco-friendly as possible, so I was thrilled when I saw Alisa Burke's tutorial about how to make bunting flags from junk mail.  I just LOVE Alisa's website, and I read it all the time.  I decided to modify her idea a bit to make streamers for our talent show.

First, I dug through our paper bin in the office (where we keep paper to be recycled) for sturdy paper.  Then, I spread them out in the living room, turned on some Netflix, and started painting!  I painted both sides of the paper.  Now, I think Alisa's version is so super cute and fun, and she cut hers into triangles.  Well, after I'd spent DAYS painting (which I loved, but it did take much longer than I thought it would), I loved all our artwork (I say "our" because Mark joined me for several hours) so much that I didn't want to cut any of it up.  I left the paintings in their original shapes (various sized rectangles), used a hole puncher to put holes along the top, and strung them on ribbon.  Alisa sewed hers together, which looks great, but Mark and I thought thick ribbon would hold up better.  Plus, we decided we would keep our streamers and use them at parties for years to come.  Here are the pics:

This is a small example of the 66 pieces we painted and strung.  We have SO many streamers now!  We'll take pics once we decorate for the talent show, and you'll be able to see them in all their glory.

Love,

Melanie