February 9, 2012

Quick and Easy: DIY Banner Tutorial

Banner’s are all the rage right now, and I don’t know about you, but the weather where I’m at has been a little too gloomy for my taste. So I decided to make a quick and easy, spring-ish, could also pass as Valentine’s-ish banner…. IT’S WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY, ALRIGHT?

To start, you need to gather your supplies. I went with a greenish/pink cottage type vibe, because a) I had it and b) I like it. And those are the two most important components to this sort of afternoon craft.

diy banner 1
Next, I cut the papers into 5x7 rectangles.

diy banner 2
And this is not related to the task, but the day was rather gloomy and dreary, and the lighting was oh so terrible. I tried to fix it, but no go. I’m just letting you know, so as to explain why the pictures are slightly different shades of colors.

NEXT STEP: Trimming the ends. I cut out a point, also known as a triangle.  Now some people would throw the triangle pieces away, but oh no, not I.  TRIANGLES FOREVER! 

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Now, you should have two stacks of papers. A cute banner shape stack, and a triangle shape stack.
CRITICAL STEP! Lay out the banner pieces in an order that is pleasing to thine eye. If you used all the same types of paper, awesome. If you mixed and matched from your scrap pile, awesome. Lay it out, move it around, play with the order until you like it.

Then, you mix and match the triangle pieces over the tops of those… like so:

diy banner 4
Now you’ll notice that I didn’t put the triangle pieces all the way to the top. For this banner, I chose to score, then fold, and staple the banner. If you want to put the pieces all the way at the top, you can. It’s you banner, so it’s your call.

But for the sake of argument, I’ll show you my score line. It’s a little less than a half an inch from the top, not that I measured. I eyeballed it.

diy banner 5
I also couldn’t find my scoring tool, so I used a flat head screwdriver instead. If it works, it works. You could also use the back of a butter knife, if you can’t find your screwdriver, not that I’ve ever had to do THAT before *cough*.

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ANYWAYS. After you have finished scoring all your banners, then you can start to assemble them to your liking. Glue down the triangles, add some embellishments… whatever you have, that you like.

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Once that’s all done, you’re ready to attach the banner flags. I had grosgrain ribbon on hand, so that is what I used. (Can you sense a theme here?)

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I just slipped the ribbon under the flag, and then folded the scored edge over. Then I stapled each end, and once more in the middle just for good measure.

diy banner 9
I spaced each flag about three fingers apart, and got my assembly line on.

When everything was attached, I used some extra ribbon to tie a knot between each flag for some pizazz. (Plus, I really like ribbon.)

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The nice thing about this banner is that it’s LIGHT, so I grabbed my scotch tape, and hung it on up.

Instant cheer on this cold, winter day.

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Total cost for this project: $0, but that’s only because I had everything on hand. And my four year old totally go in on the action and helped glue and assemble everything. Perfect way to brighten up any rainy day.