Another fun wedding craft! This time it's a banner for my good friend Al's bridal shower, which is coming up this weekend! The other co-hostesses and I picked a fun contemporary theme of umbrellas, and are using a bright summery color palate. Since the shower will be at a restaurant we don't need to worry about much decoration-wise, but I wanted a few personal touches.
This banner is a quick & easy craft project, and all of the pieces are re-usable and recyclable! Here's how I made it:
I picked up a "basics paper" book of cardstock in the "fun" collection, which are textured sheets in 10 solid colors. They are already cut to 5" x 7", which meant I had very little cutting to do. I made a template from the back blank piece of cardboard by marking the center of one of the short sides, and drawing lines from the corners of the other short side to make a triangle.
I laid the template on the back of each the pages and traced it lightly with a pencil. I then cut the two long sides of each triangle with a fancy scissor for a scalloped edge. That was the most time consuming part, my scalloped scissor was only about 2" to begin with, and for some reason the beginning and end of it don't cut strongly, so there was a lot of short slices: open the scissor, press down, open again, line up the design, repeat a million times.
I also tried to use a pinking shear scissors I'd picked up from the dollar store a while back, and it was total crap. Note to self: good cutting tools are worth it. Cheap ones are not. I cut one triangle with the pinked scissors and went back to my provocraft scalloped scissor. It wasn't great either, but much sturdier with a better cutting surface. I picked up a bunch of them in a drum at Michaels, all different cutting patterns.
Next I altered my template so I could use it cut two vertical slices about 1" long near the top (short edge) of each triangle. This was for the ribbon to thread through. I actually made it through the cutting process just fine, only to stab myself with the exacto knife later on when I leaned on it accidentally. OUCH!
I threaded a thick black cotton ribbon through, which matched nicely with the letters I used - which were a great find! Michaels had these packs of pre-cut paper letters in sort of post-it style pads, with a little bit of sticky tack on the back. A pack of over 300 was under $5, and this is a great deal. Cheaper than stickers, less work than stencils or cutting, and they really look sharp in contrast to the bright colored flags!
Mine is actually 2 pieces, so I could spell out more of a phrase - but I'll keep the exact final product quiet so the bride has a few surprises :)
I put the whole thing together in a couple of hours while watching TV, so it's definitely an easy and quick project, but I think it turned out really cute!
Together the pieces cost:
Paper: about $5 for 40 sheets(I only get it when it's on sale 40% off)so for the 24 pages I used we're talking $3.00
Letters: about $3 for 310 letters, originally around $5 less a 40% off coupon, so less than $0.25 for what I used.
Ribbon: $2.50, also on sale, used all of it (9 yards).
+ 1 Band-aid for exacto injury :)
Price for a cool, crafty, one of a kind & personalized banner: under $6!
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