This baby is surrounded by love and family and community and celebration. 
Celebrate we will.

Cut your fabric into 2x44 inch pieces.
This will mean that you cut from selvedge to selvedge.
I find that 44 inches is a perfect length for backdrops.
The pesky chevron prints ran the wrong way on the bolt, so I had to purchase 44 inches of each of them instead of the 1/2 yard.  This won't happen if you are using a solid or a random all over print, but keep this fact in mind when you are at the cut counter. 


 Stack your strips into neat little piles.

With your scissors you are going to cut two 1/2 inch or so vertical slits.
Repeat with the top of each strip.
(I totally took this picture on self timer while holding the phone in my mouth. Without cutting off my thumb.  With the kitchen scissors because I can't find my fabric ones.)

Next thread the string through the safety pin and knot it.
Then run it through each strip.
(Don't worry, I am painting my nails tonight.  Kindly look away and don't judge.)

Before you know it all the strips will be threaded in a happy jumble on your table.
Next you just need to hang it up, spread them out evenly and wait for your party guests.

I'm thinking boy... and I cannot wait to find out.

Then when you are thinking about this momentous occasion when they will find out if they will have a son or daughter, you think of the all the photos and the videos, and the 1970's brick that you hate like you hate ketchup.  So you do what any rational person does and paint it a crisp clean white, and wonder how you have lived in your house for five years, with ugly burgundy bricks and survived.

If I had made the garland the time consuming knot way, I wouldn't have been able to give the fireplace a facelift.
Boom.

Boba Fett loving boys need garlands too.  And Sarlacc Pit cakes.  But that is for another day.  Related:  see the black hole of darkness behind him?  1970's bricks.  I am deliriously happy to never have to see them ever again.

So school got out.
YAY.  Because I have been totally this mom.
Then again, I'm also this mom who is freaking out at the sheer number of children that I need to entertain for days and days and days.
I ate a lot of feelings worth of Cheetos today.  A lot a lot.

I have wanted summer more than anything, and now that it is here I sort of can't breathe.  We have little on the calendar that we had last summer (adios to most of the camps/vbs/vacations) just blank square after blank square.
Blank squares are a little scary to this accustomed to being very busy family.

Last summer we had a loose daily schedule for the days that we were home, and it worked very well for my needs-to-know-everything-in-advance child, as well as my needs-to-ask-me-all-day-long-what-is-next child.  This summer a schedule is mandatory.  For their security and for my sanity.  We also needed a weekly activity schedule to better navigate the blank squares.

I had them printed at Costco (which somehow I braved with all four of the little ones, fed them in the food court, which has Pepsi not Coke HAPPY DAY, found Puddle Jumpers for cheap, got gas, and brought everyone home alive) and have a feeling that ten thousand times a day I will be pointing them to the schedule.  Somehow though, sending them to the schedule is much better than having to say no to their requests.  Less saying no means less drama.  Less drama means less Cheeto eating.

Lets see how it goes.  Lets see if I can breathe tomorrow.

In case you are going a little crazy and this sort of schedule might help your family's sanity, I made blank versions that you can download here.

They are sized as 11x14 and the text can easily be added in PicMonkey, or throw it in a frame or laminate it and use a dry erase marker to make it changeable, or heck, just go with a sharpie.
Whatever is less stressful for you.

Okay.
So this is super simple.
If you can use scissors, you can totally figure it out.
Indulge me though.  I am the kind of person that likes to figure things out, AND really likes when other people figure things out for me.

I made one for the Favorite Things Party, and one last year for Christmas (but I couldn't find it this year, so I ended up making a map garland instead.  Next year the map one will inevitably go missing and something else will take it's place.)

Shall we begin?
You need:
Cardstock (you know from that one time that you used to scrapbook..)
Paper cutter
Scissors
Hole punch
Twine, yarn, or braided unicorn mane
Pencil with a good eraser

Figure out how many letters you need, choose the number of pieces of paper accordingly.
Cut each piece of paper into a 4x6 inch rectangle

Lay out the rectangles in a color order that makes you the least crazy.

Turn over each paper and write the corresponding letter on the top.

Sketch out each letter BACKWARDS on the back of each paper.
You can totally do this on the front, but my letters always end up a hot mess until I finally settle on how I want them to look.  When it is on the back, you don't have to erase.

HOWEVER, there is no chance in the world that I can make an non-hideous backwards S, so I lightly draw the S on the front of the paper, and gently erase the crazy parts.

I like the handmade, a bit sloppy, a little crazy, look of the letters.  I don't bother with cutting out the insides of letters (like R, O, A) because that is annoying.  Crafting shouldn't be annoying. If you are an OCD perfectionist, this might not be the garland for you.  Or it might be forced therapy to help you CHILL OUT a bit...

Cut out.
String on the twine (unicorn mane, etc.)

Hang up.
Then end.

Tutorials: (coming sooooooon.)