Paper Banner: A DIY Craft Tutorial

Something super popular that I've seen on craft blogs are paper banners. Meghan's mom makes beautiful and intricate ones. Everybody seems to have them, but nobody shows how to make them.

Probably 'cuz they're "easy" in the crafting world.

Good thing I'm not crafty at all.

Preface: I'm "crafty" enough (I can make cards, but I rotate the same three styles over and over) to have all of my supplies on hand. Meredith recently complained how all of her crafty friends say they make things "for free" from items they have around the house, but that she never has the supplies on hand. Even if you didn't have these supplies on hand, it wouldn't cost very much (a few sheets of paper, a gluestick, ribbon, and some love).

I used:

3 sheets of 12x12 colored cardstock

3 sheets of 8.5x11 white cardstock

1 sheet of colored cardstock for the letters

cardboard letter stencils I traced (although these could easily be printed out on white computer paper and then cut out)

1 small spool of ribbon

a hole puncher (I only have a 3-hole puncher so I improvised)

a gluestick

First, I cut the colored cardstock so that they were four inches in height (so I could easily cut the 12x12 paper in thirds) and three inches in width (I wanted a rectangle, but a 4"x4" square would have worked too).

Then, I cut the white cardstock about an inch smaller than the colored cardstock. That means my white rectangles were about 3.5"x2.5".

Then, I glued the white cardstock pieces on the colored pieces. I made 13 (so I could write "Happy Birthday" but in hindsight, I wish I would have made 14 so that I could have a blank one as a space in between the words).

Then, I took my cardboard letter stencils and traced them backwards on a brown sheet of paper. (For those of you who own Cricuts, no judging my handmade letters).

My awesome cardboard stencils:

I arranged the cutout letters on the white cardstock to make sure everything looked good. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to have each letter centered on the card or if I wanted the p's to be lower since they normally hang below the sight line. I decided on centering. Good decision, Sar.

(Look at Chloe tryin' to help! Good kitty, eh?)

I hole-punched each upper corner in each letter. Rawr.

Then, I cut ribbon about four inches long (Maybe a little longer? I eyeballed it.) so that I could make double knots for each hole (if I didn't double knot it, the knot would slip through the hole). I chose to tie off each letter individually (instead of stringing them on one long piece of ribbon) so that I could control the length and not have to worry about spacing.

Lastly, I tied on longer pieces of ribbon at the ends so that I could tie up the banner.

The final product:

(Notice Walks on Water Jesus? Best gift ever.)

A close-up:

I ended up having some pretty well-sized leftovers, so I make some labels on bamboo skewers for the appetizers that I'm making for dad's 60th birthday party on Sunday.

I also made some labels for the cheeses that will be on the cheese plate using toothpicks. Cute, right?

And that, my friends, is what happens when I get bored on a Thursday evening and nobody's around. Somebody hide the cardstock.