DIY: Happy Birthday Flag

I decided to jump on the blogger bandwagon and take photos of my son to commemorate some of his age milestones. I’m not as diligent as the folks over at Young House Love, so I will not be taking his photo every single week. Instead, I’ll do it once a month for the first year and then once a year for every subsequent year. The vision is that he will sit in the same chair and hold the same flag each year. I can already see his begrudging 13 year-old face when I ask him to pose for that year’s photo…

I wanted to make the project as simple as possible–no time for complexity these days! So during one of my breaks when Matt was on Henry duty, I grabbed a dowel we had from another abandoned project (I thought I wanted to make a Montessori Gobbi mobile, but I will be buying it off Etsy instead!), some fabric, and posterboard.

Here’s how I made the flag:

1. I folded the fabric in half with the good sides facing each other.
2. Using a ruler, a cutting mat, and a rotary cutter, I cut out my flag triangle, intentionally making it a little bit bigger to allow for the seams.
3. I sewed up both sides of the flag, but left the bottom open.
4. I turned the flag right side out and used a pencil to poke out the tip.
5. I cut some posterboard to fit inside the flag to help it stick out and keep its shape.
6. I folded the bottom over and sewed a little tunnel for the dowel to slide into.
7. Finally, I sewed across the top, so the dowel would stop when it got to the top of the flag.

Aside from the fact that I accidentally dumped the entire contents of my sewing tupperware on the ground, the process was very smooth (primarily because I didn’t care about the little details). I knew the flag would only be looked at from a distance.

Oh, I almost forgot. The final step was to ask Matt to use Photoshop to put the number in. Voila!

And while I’m here, I’d like to pay homage to Henry’s guitar rocker outfit. It was the last time he’ll be fitting into it. [insert sigh]