Making a Banner

Tips for making a banner for a birthday, holiday, or any celebration. Post your own ideas here.

Use A Sheet

My grandkids and I used a twin size white flat sheet and spray paint to welcome home their daddy from Iraq. Suddenly we saw a whole lot of them around here.

By EGRIBBLE

Mother's Day Banner On Freezer Paper

Depending on how wide you need the banner to be, you might consider getting out the freezer paper and some markers. Write your message to Mom. Decorate with tissue flowers or silk ones or even large stickers. Take something she enjoys and decorate with that theme. If she likes to dress up, take a high heeled shoe and trace onto paper, color it in adding glitter and a dazzling pair of earrings, and a necklace. If she enjoys cooking, draw an apron, rolling pin, pot and pan, etc. or, if she loves to garden, draw flower pots, spades, veggies, rakes, hoes, etc. Is she into sewing, draw a tape measure, a huge thimble, a needle with thread coming out the eye and then make a checked fabric with markers. Does she like to quilt, do a patch work design. Just use you imagination and have fun. She will love it because it came from you.

By martha pitts

Dollar Store Mother's Day Banner

Depending on what you have to spend and how crafty you are and if you have any help, it might be kinda fun to go to the dollar store and get the following:

• construction paper
• tissue paper in sheets or small to medium artificial flowers
• glue or glue gun with sticks
• hole punch and reinforcements for looseleaf paper
• flat back jewels or round stickers (like happy faces)

Choose a sheet of construction paper for each letter. You might like to use one color for each word, ie: green for "happy" etc. With each sheet vertical (up and down) measure and lightly draw a line down each long side, 1/2-1 inch wide and do the same on the short sides. In the resulting box, lightly print in large caps to fill the box each letter of Happy Mother's Day (give the apostrophe it's own sheet too)

In the margins of each sheet, punch a hole about 1/2 to 1 inch from both top and bottom of each sheet, keeping the holes on each sheet even with the following ones. This is best done by measuring and marking a dot with a pencil on each one, then punching at the dots. Don't forget this is done on the "long" sides of each sheet "only". Apply reinforcements to each hole, "front and back", to keep the holes from ripping when the banner hangs. Using the tissue, cut 4-6 inch squares and grasp the center of each square, gathering it tightly. Glue the resulting bunches along your pencil lines, forming a floral letter on each sheet.

I am more in favor of using the artificial flowers as follows: remove stem and center of flowers, separating into petals. Glue petals separately along the lines of the letters, filling any center holes with a sticker, jewel, or other round decoration (sequins, buttons, etc.) Do this until you have each letter done. Arrange in order needed. Using some colorful yarn, string, etc. also available at dollar stores, tie each letter to the next one with a length of yarn, (not too long, experiment!) through top holes and bottom holes, leaving a little space between letter.

On each end, add a hanging loop at top or bottom that you can hang over large map pins or stick tacks through to hang the banner. Good luck, if you use this, post a picture so we can all see it.

By Mary Lou