One of the very first projects to be added to my DIY to-do list was these Yay! flags originally posted on Wedding Bee by OG bee blogger Mrs. Lollipop.

Looks simple enough right? A little bit of muslin, some wood dowels and bam instant yay! flag! Yea, that didn’t happen. For this girl simple little Yay! flags involve 7 yards of muslin, 2 mesh screens, 3 different inks, a sewing machine, some dowels and lots of glitter and glue.Oh but aren’t they pretty? In my opinion they are totally worth it. If you think so too keep reading for the step by step instructions on how to make your own.

The Supplies

-Muslin

-Screen printing supplies or iron on transfer paper and printer*

-dress maker sheers or rotary cutter

-yard stick

-self healing mat

-wood dowels

-wood bead

Wood glue

-glitter

-Martha Stewart decoupage glue

-optional for double sided flags

-quilting fabric*

-sewing machine*

-contrasting thread*

*not pictured

First take your muslin, sheers/rotary, mat and ruler and cut your fabric down to size. Ours came out to be about 8x5 inches but depending on the text for you’re the flag yours may be smaller or larger. In order to make printing easier for us we chose to cut a rectangle large enough for 4 flags first than after our text and pattern was on our fabric trim it down to our final size.

With your fabric cut screen print your image on using the method out lined in this post. If you don’t want to screen print your text you can follow the instructions listed on this website for iron-on transfers.

If you choose to make your flags double sided like ours you’ll need to sew both pieces together prior to attaching them to your dowel. This can become pretty repetitive; to reduce some of your work I recommend you only stitch the 3 sides that will be visible when your flag is complete. For some crazy reason I chose to top stitch ours which I strongly discourage. I seriously doubt our guest will notice the extra detail and although it only took about 20 min to top stitch 80 flags after sewing turning and pressing 80 flags I was kind of over it.

It’s now time to assembling your sticks. Take your wood dowel and bead and dry fit them together. If you find that it’s difficult to join them together take a small exacto knife and carefully whittle away the excess wood on the inside your bead.

Once your bead and dowel fit comfortably dip the end of your dowel into your wood glue and join both pieces.

Repeat until done and allow to dry overnight.

Once your dowels are dry take your decoupage glue and apply a generous amount of glue to the bead on top of your dowel. Sprinkle your glitter onto your newly applied glue and allow to dry overnight. Once completely dry apply a second coat of glue to your dowel. This will seal in your glitter and prevent it from getting all over your guests.

We’re almost done! All that’s left is to attach your flag to your dowel with your decoupage glue. Take your dowel and cover the 1/3 with glue. With your dowel in hand take your flag and gently role edge around the coated dowel and hold for 30 seconds.

If you find that the 2 layers of fabric won’t adhere to your dowel simply take your glue and run a thin layer of glue onto your fabric before joining your flag to the dowel. Allow to let dry and stand back and admire your handy work!

first image courtesy of weddingbee.com