Project Fifteen: Banner

When my girls were younger, I made them name banners for their birthdays. My oldest has a "monster" themed banner and my middle has an "Annie" themed banner (as in, the sun will come out). They hang in their bedrooms to this day and turned out super cute. When I made them, the whole name banner thing was still a pretty new idea. Now, if you search on Etsy, you can get banners in all shapes, sizes and colors!

My sister-in-law and brother recently came to stay and saw the banner in my middle's room. This sparked my sister-in-law to ask me to make a name banner for my nephew's room. I was really excited about making a cute banner in a baseball theme, until I realized how nerve-wracking it is to make something for someone else!

I pondered and pondered... I even went looking on Etsy for ideas to "borrow." I finally decided I was creative enough to walk confidently into Micheal's and begin to shop.

I wanted to make the background into triangles to give the pennant look and feel. I downloaded a cute, sporty font (courtesy of dafont.com) and printed the letters. (I do not own a Cricut, as I am truly not crafty.) I also wanted to have a cute image for the beginning and end of the banner. I found a vintage looking baseball image from Google Images and printed it too.

To make the pennants, I bought single sheets of scrapbook paper. I picked rough paper bag looking paper to go along with my vintage theme.

All that was left was what to hang the banner on and ribbons. I picked out a blue and white polka dot ribbon and a red ribbon. For the line, I purchased jute (hint: this is used in quite a few upcoming projects). I was ready to start creating!

Below, you can see my supplies:
- Glue, had in my cabinet
- Hole punch, had in my cabinet
- Ribbons, purchased from Micheal's
- Paper, purchased from Micheal's
- Jute, purchased from Micheal's

 

While I was printing my letters and baseballs, I printed a triangle to serve as the template for my pennants. I cut out all the triangles, letters and baseballs. Next, I glued the letters and baseballs onto the pennants.

The next step is the dreaded hole punch... where all the work you have done can be ruined with one wrong move. Luckily, the holes lined up perfect and I could cut out both holes in one quick action. Phew! It was nice not to sweat so much!

Once the holes were punched, I strung the pennants through the jute. The last step was cutting and tying the ribbon on either side of each pennant. Unfortunately, I could not get a big shot of the whole banner, but here is a little teaser below.

This project was super easy. And while it wasn't necessarily inspired by something on Pinterest, I felt it was an important project to highlight. The banner looked super cute, was super cheap and it did not require any sophisticated and expensive equipment. Go on, wannabe crafters, and make your own banner!