Made In Paris - The Awning.

While we unwrap the Made In Paris shower deets, I'm going to sprinkle in some tutorials and what better way to start than with the dessert display awning?

Here goes...

Sheena and Dom offered their home as the venue for their baby shower.  They have a large, clean slate in the auxillary room of their basement and it had more than enough space to meet my needs.  It's an open, bright and blank canvas.  Matter of fact, the ONLY piece of furniture in the space needed to work WITH the theme rather than against it. 

The desk.

It isn't exactly like this but it has a similar hutch.

You know, the typical desk with hutch combo... Nothing wrong with it but HOW could I put it to use... I looked at my list of party elements and decided to use it for the dessert display... La Patisserie, if you will.  I needed it to look MORE Patisserie and LESS desk hutch... What to do, what to do??? It hit me, an awning :)

Supplies

3 white poster boards

Craft paint

1 paint brush

1 cereal bowl

Pencil

Painter's tape

Scissors

Steps

1. Measure your hutch (or table if you're going to make it for a table display).  The desk hutch was exactly 3 poster boards. You may need more or less.

2.  Place your cereal bowl at the bottom corner of the poster board.  Trace the bowl. 

Note: In order to get the scalloped look, be sure you have a full circle shape of the bowl along the bottom.

3. Use your painters tape to mark off your stripes.  To obtain an evenly striped awning, you need to be careful while taping.  The white stripes will need both pieces of painters tape to fall inside the circle.

4.  Paint the stripes.  Be careful not to paint over the scalloped portion at the bottom as it will make cutting difficult.  Also, you may need 2-3 coats of paint if you choose a dark color...

5.  Slowly remove the tape to reveal your stripes! I prefer to remove the tape as soon I finish the last coat; the tape is less likely to pull the paint off with it.

6.  After the paint has dried, use your scissors to cut the scallops at the bottom of the board.

7.  Label the back of your awnings so you know the order to hang your poster boards.  I allowed the bowl to overlap so when I taped them up it looked like 1 piece.

8.  Erase any pencil marks from where you traced the bowl and, if you're like me, stare at how your idea came together :)

To adhere it too the wall, I first placed the scallops up against the desk to get an idea of where I wanted to hang them.  I then used Command strips along the back (2 strips per board) to adhere it to the wall.  some tape behind the scallops, black butterflies and the glitter sign and VOILA! I had a fabulous awning for  less than $5!!!

Check it out in action:

Consider that your sneak peek into the adorable dessert display we'll talk about tomorrow!