Some Vintage Musical Bunting!

Ok...I know this is not miniature related in any shape or form, but I thought I would show you what I've been up to, as I've surprised even myself with the result!

The other day my middle son's beautiful girlfriend (she is a music therapist) asked me tentatively if I would make them some vintage musical bunting for a "moving in present", as at long last they are setting up home together. How could I refuse? Even though the only bunting  I 'd ever made up until now has been in 1/12th scale, I still felt quietly confident that this task should be relatively easy in comparison. 

So....first up, I scoured our local car boot sale for old sheet music but to no avail, normally there are loads of old music/piano sheets around but not that particular day....typical! As time was of the essence, I then scoured Ebay and very quickly managed to obtain a whole bundle of random vintage music sheets of varying sizes really cheaply. They appeared to be from all kinds of old song books, ranging from hymns to folk songs. I chose pages from the folk song book.....as I thought they would be more apt and the lyrics more fun.

Next, I sliced up about 20 pages of music to make them all the same size using my guillotine. Then at the bottom edge of each sheet, marked the central point.

After that, it was just a simple task of matching up top corners to the bottom central point and slicing up with the guillotine, to make triangular shapes.

Hmm...I ended up with loads of interestingly shaped offcuts, and because it seemed such a shame to simply throw them away, they have all now gone in a carrier bag and stowed away until I can figure out what to do with them.

 I folded each top edge over by 1" and trimmed the excess off the top side edges with scissors.

Next, along each very top edge, I carefully stuck a long strip of thin double sided tape.

After wondering whether to use string, cord or material tape, I finally decided on using some old black and white thick cotton twine that had been stashed away in a drawer (I knew it would come in useful one day). Then as each taped edge was folded over, the twine was sandwiched inside along the fold.  A gap of 1/2" was left in between each triangle, all along the twine. This was the trickiest bit of the whole project due to the fact that double sided tape was being used, as it meant that the fold and fixing in the twine had to be right first time.  Unfortunately I discovered that if I stuck the folded bit slightly crooked, there was no chance of rectifying as the paper simple tore in trying to undo it all. Out of 20 triangles, I mucked up 4 so not too bad. I still ended up with a very long piece of vintage musical bunting....yay!

Am chuffed to bits with the result! Hope this has inspired you too.....as this could be adapted using all kinds of old vintage paper....now my head is buzzing with all sorts of ideas!