Fraternity Flags

As I mentioned, I am a member of Alpha Phi Omega, the national service fraternity. Earlier this semester, one of my "brothers" was looking for people that knew how to sew to help make flags for each "family" within the fraternity. After the sewing I did this summer, I decided I probably was experienced enough to help out.

These flags were SUPER easy to make. Each "family" has two colors, a primary, which became the flag body, and a secondary, which is the color of the letter. There are 24 families, each one with a corresponding greek letter. My fraternity "brother" had purchaced all the materials and had the sewing machine at school, and I was able to use it at my leisure to work on these flags. When I started, eight flag bodies had been made.

Making each flag is a lot like making a pillow case. These are the steps I took:

1. Iron fabric flat, then fold, matching short sides together (hamburger style!).
2. Sew along the three "open" sides of the fabric, leaving a quarter inch seam allowance. On the side opposite of the fold, leave a 1 1/2 - 2inch gap. This gap will help you to turn the flag inside out and also serve as the opening to the sleeve for a flag pole.

Sewing along the dotted lines.

3. Turn the fabric inside out. Iron seams flat.
4. Sew around all four edges, leaving a half inch seam allowance, and not sewing your opening shut.

Sew along the dotted lines.

Flag "right side" out.

 

5. Sew up the flag to create the sleeve for the flag pole.

The body of your flag is now done!

For the letters, one of my fellow brothers drafted the greek letters onto iron-on transfer paper. I ironed the transfer paper onto the appropriate colored fabric and cut out the letters. The transfer paper peeled off, leaving adhesive on the fabric of the letter. I centered it on corresponding flag body, ironed it on and then sewed a zig-zag border around the letter.

Iota, my family flag in blue and silver.

 

They turned out looking great and serve their purpose well!

 

Theta family flag in black and gold.

Masquerade Masks

As I mentioned, I am a member of Alpha Phi Omega (APO), the national service fraternity.  Each semester we have two dances, one for only the active members, and one celebrating the activation of our pledges into the fraternity. The activation dance is typically just a semi-formal dance, but this year they added a masquerade theme.  I called upon Pinterest for some mask inspiration and found an awesome tutorial HERE for the masks pictured above and below.  These masks were very simple to make and I made masks for myself and five of my friends.

All you need is tulle or other sheer fabric, fabric paint, plastic wrap, the mask template (you can make your own) and ribbon. On the blog I found the tutorial on, the template for the masks is available for download.  After printing out the template, you simply tape it down to a table, tape a piece of plastic wrap on top of it and then tape the tulle on top of that. Then, you trace the template with the fabric paint and let it dry overnight.  When it is dry, it will peel off the plastic wrap and you can cut out around the peremeter of the mask and use the fabric glue to attach the ribbon to the sides.

I made two different styles, the original template that was shown on the other blog and a "melting" mask. I used plain black fabric paint and black glitter fabric paint. The black glitter paint dried to give a silver sparkled look.

Hello Hello!

Hello!

I thought as my first post, I would give a little background about myself and why I've started blogging. I am college student at Saint Louis University, studying occupational therapy! Here, I am a member of Alpha Phi Omega, Delta Delta chapter of the national service fraternity. I was a member of the Girl Scouts of America for 11 years, completing my Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards.

I love to do crafts, and I always have. When I am not doing my school work or service work, I make time to do various craft projects. What I have made is mostly displayed around my apartment or given as gifts. I hope to keep my friends and family in tune to what I am doing down here at school and keeping my creative juices flowing!

I am going to start posting projects I have completed in the past year or so along with the projects I work on as I finish them!

Enjoy!