Quick & Easy Felt Garlands with Sizzix

Simon is turning four this weekend, and to celebrate we threw him an epic superhero movie night party. All of the party decorations were simple and inexpensive DIY projects that only took a little bit of time to complete. One of my favorites is this awesome felt star garland that I made using my new Sizzix Big Shot machine

For my 15′ long banner, I used about 10 sheets of craft felt including a few sheets of glittery felt (red and blue) and mesh backed glitter fabric (gold – sold in the same section as the felt at our local craft store).

This was my first time using the Sizzix Big Shot, and I was a little apprehensive about it. I have always daydreamed about owning a cutting machine that easily cuts through felt, but I have never been able to find one that works as well as I have hoped. With everything else I’ve tried, cutting stars would have resulted in lots and lots of blunt and torn tips from the stars not being cut all the way through. The Big Shot is powered manually by a hand crank, and I was extra worried that I wouldn’t have the oomf or muscle needed to make it work properly.

I trimmed my felt to fit over the star die and layered them between the two Sizzix cutting pads.

The hand crank turned out to be ridiculously easy to use, and I got the hang of it in no time!

Look at that! Perfect crisp stars with clean cuts ALL the way through – every time!

The Big Shot machine worked like a champ on my felt! I cut extra stars for a future project, and I was able to crank out 200 stars in about half an hour – impressive! Not only is the Big Shot fast, it’s cutting skills are impeccable. I didn’t have to re-cut a single star by hand or even release any stuck corners or edges!

I can’t bring myself to throw out these fun scrap pieces. Maybe I’ll turn them into a star flag banner for the next patriotic holiday!

The fun part about these stars is that they are made to be stacked and layered. I whipped out my sewing machine and quickly sewed all of the stars together into a long chain to create the banner. For every 5th-ish star I used either a gold glitter star or a layered stacked star to add some visual interest.

I really LOVE the way that it turned out! It’s incredible that a few sheets of inexpensive craft felt can be turned into something with so much visual punch and pizzazz! The felt is also longer lasting and less delicate than the paper banners that I typically make, so I can foresee myself making lots more of these in the future.