Picnic Party Bunting (with a Sure Cuts a Lot Trace Tutorial)

rainy days make photographing projects harder...

I am a little weird- I am a Coloradoan who loves the rain. Its true- it happens so rarely, I LOVE rainy days. Since having the little guy, however, we've been pretty cooped up inside with an abnormally windy spring. I have been taking full advantage of the beautiful sunny days we have had so far this year and since this weekend's weather calls for sun, I'm going to throw a little "Picnic Party" for us.

We had an old plastic picnic table cover laying around from a past political event, and it's been sitting in my laundry room taking up space. I decided to re purpose it into some great ideas to make our little picnic extra fun- and since all the crafts use one picnic table cover (which we bought for under $3), it is a great inexpensive way to accessorize! While this tutorial focuses on a Cricut cutter and Sure Cuts a Lot software, you can make the banner using the directions I have given below and use pre-cut vinyl or sticker letters (or even just paint the banner) and stickers of ants.

I wanted to spell out "Lets Eat" for the bunting and have some friendly ants joining the party. First, I cut out a shape of a banner pennant onto paper with my cricut using Sure Cuts a Lot software. If you have a cricut, and you only use cartridges, I would seriously consider buying Sure Cuts a Lot. It allows you to use any font you have on your computer (and you can download so many adorable fonts for free online) as well as basic pictures. It really makes your cricut more versatile and you don't have to keep paying for expensive cartridges! You can buy your copy here, or by clicking on the icon on my sidebar. I get a small commission for referring buyers, which helps me pay for this blog- but it really is the most useful thing I have found to date with my cricut.

Next, I used the paper as a guide to cut the picnic cloth. You could iron on interfacing to the back of the picnic cloth and cut it using your cricut, but I liked the slightly imperfect lines for a picnic, and they don't show much on a picnic table cover, so it didn't seem worth the hassle.

Then fold a strip of banner over to make a channel. Tuck baker's twine into the channel, and sew.

Once you have sewn all of your bunting pennants onto the twine, trim edges and any overhang to make a neat pennant.

Load a sheet of vinyl onto your cricut mat, using a deep blade and high pressure. Open your Sure Cuts a Lot (SCAL) software, and type out letters. I chose "Lets Eat" in Tekton. I also made the letters bold and set them to shadow outline" under the text options. This makes them a little thicker and easier to see- but you could just use a fatter font.

To get an image of an ant to cut, find any file online (open clip art has a bunch) and save it to your computer. As many of these are saved as JPEG files, you will need to convert them to be able to use them in SCAL. Don't worry, this is extremely easy with simple pictures like clip art!

First, chose the "trace image" option under "file".

Then, you will be prompted to find an image. Hit "browse", and select your image.

Hit ok, and let the software do the work for you! Your image will show up on the page in just a few seconds. You can then re size it, move it, and copy it to make a bunch more!

I had an ant for every letter. Be sure to pack these in as tight as possible (leave a little room for your machine to make cuts) so you don't waste a lot of vinyl. When you are happy with your font and ants, press cut!

Vinyl has an adhesive backing. I simply removed the backing and stuck the vinyl onto the banners like a sticker. I did not measure the space for the letters, as with a fun outdoor feel, I thought a little variation would add to the charm- but if you are making a more formal bunting, I'd measure where you are placing letters to make them uniform.

Hang, and you're set! Tomorrow I'll list a few more picnic crafts, including a quick bib (which I need to redesign- little man was able to tear his apart in under 5 seconds, so I'm working on that today)!