The Big ONE: Banner

Last week, while spending time browsing through Pinterest, I saw a couple cute Happy Birthday banners that I liked. However, with my daughter's birthday now less than three weeks away, I knew I likely wouldn't have time to order one from Etsy and guarantee it would arrive in time unless I paid for a rush delivery. So like I did with Abby's tutu, I decided to make her banner as well!

I gathered ideas from various pins and Etsy listings, making note of various elements I liked from various designs. This past weekend I picked up some sheets of card stock in the party colors (50% off the regular price, too!) and began work on the project.

I purchased several sheets of blue, purple, green, pink, and white card stock. I cut one sheet of each color into 4" squares, and then cut a few sheets of my white paper into 3" squares, on which my letters will then be attached.

While deciding how much of a colored border I wanted, I simply cut some 3" & 3.5" squares of regular printer paper to visualize, before ultimately decided I liked the look of the 3" the best.

Next, I glued my white squares onto my colored ones.

For my letters, I wanted bright, block lettering that would really pop from the background.  I printed out the letters needed to spell out Happy Birthday Abbigail onto some white cardstock and then cut them out to use as a template.  After my letters were cut out, I then traced them onto the bright pink cardstock I purchased and cut out each letter (I'm a bad blogger and did not capture photos of these steps, I apologize).

In order to help make the letters pop and provide dimension to the banner, I used a roll of foam double-sided tape to adhere the letters to the background, just to add a little depth.  The next step for me was to then "hang" the banners and ribbon to the wall.

While I had intended to actually thread the ribbon through the squares, I decided to go for an easier approach and first attached the ribbon to the wall with some mounting putty, following behind with each letter square over the ribbon to give a banner effect, without having to worry about actually attaching my squares to the ribbons.