How To-zday: Spring Mantel Bunting

It snowed last night.  Not much, just a little over an inch.  But its definitely snow, its definitely freezing & this is definitely not at all like spring.
So, if the outside stubbornly clings to winter, then I shall make the inside of the house spring like instead.  Turn about is fair play & whatnot.
Remember the pennant banner I made for my winter mantel?  Well this one is a variation on the same thing, now with more spring~*

You'll need:
--three different patterns of coordinating fabric: I picked up some fat quarters {roughly 18"x 22"} down out our local fabric store
--coordinating bias tape: I got tri-fold on sale, ironed it flat, then folded it in half and ironed again
--craft weight fusible interfacing {like this}to give the fabric body: you could also sew two pieces of fabric together  to make banner reversible, but since you can only ever see it from one side on our mantel, I'd rather save the remaining fabric for something else!

How To:
-- fuse the interfacing to the fabric {just follow the manufacturers directions}
--Create a pattern for the bunting.  I decided to do half-circles instead of pennants.  Half circles look more spring to me I guess.  So to create my pattern, I traced a plate.  I could write a book on the number of crafts one can do that start with tracing a plate.
--Calculate how many half circles you'll need: measure your mantel or other bunting locale, measure the half circle, then figure out how many half circles equal your mantel/other locale.  Word problems.  Ick.
--Cut the appropriate number of circles
--Cut the circles in half
--Pin the bias tape to the half circles, alternating fabrics: as previously noted, I had ironed the bias tape flat, then folded it in half.  Arranging the half circles was simply a matter of sliding them in between the bias tape and pinning
--Once the banner is pinned, sew!

And that is all there is to it!

The last two pics, taken by my daughter with her fancy camera, are to demonstrate why pictures of our mantel always looks so grainy.  We have this huge window on the same wall.  A window that I love, but that tends to cause a glare whenever taking pictures of the mantel next to it, and require us to turn on the overhead light in order to get any detail in pictures at all.  Which bums me out because the mantel looks really cute.  Sigh.  

I still have a few little things I want to do for it, before its totally spring-ed out.  I am going to switch around the artwork, swap out the owl for a squirrel, maybe put away the non-mercury glass trees...we'll see.  I'll be using the fabric scraps to make some little accessories for the remainder of the room-- I had three full circles left over that I've turned in to doilies...but all of that will be the subject for another post~*

Has spring sprung in your neck of the woods or do you have a prolonged winter with a nasty side of spring fever?