Quick Banners and Garlands

Quick Banners and Garlands and Bunting, Oh My!

Before kids, do you want to know how many banners , garlands, or buntings I made in my life? None. Not a single one. Bachellorette party? Bought a party banner. Work colleague retiring? Bought a banner. Now however, I think we make 2 of these a week. Every new tea party needs a new bunting, right? “Right,” says my nearly 3 year old hostess.

Nowadays if I see something that could even hint at becoming a garland, I swoop it up and stash it. During a ‘mommy recovery’ session, I broke into that stash, folks.

For those of you who’ve been with Ruffles and Rain Boots awhile, you know that Elise and I took a trip from Seattle, WA to New York without Jeff. We were lucky with great travel days however, we were not so lucky with the little one actually sleeping during that trip. This is no exaggeration: there were nights that 3 hours of sleep were a blessing.

We had a wonderful week basking with friends and family in that sunny New York summer, but when we got home Jeff knew what. was. up. He took the little one and left me alone for about a day and half – a much needed day and a half – for “mommy recovery.” And wouldn’t you know it? That kid slept like 12 hours the night she was gone. Can we say it all together now? Not. Fair.

During my recovery, I crafted – big surprise – and I’m just now getting to write all of that stuff up, so you’re going to see summery crafts like this popping up here and there. I could schedule them for next summer, but I need a little bright in my life now that we’re in the throes of the rainy season here in the Pacific North West.

But back to the banners and garlands and bunting, oh my! bit of this…

I came across these pre-cut wooden shapes at a craft store and because they were on clearance for 5 cents each (AWESOME!!!), I bought about 4,324,142 of them. I have a ton of these things in various shapes and I thought I would whip up a couple of generic party banners for our various events: tea parties, ‘school’ sessions, and mommy’s favorite type of celebration: we made it through the day without a single tantrum!

Materials

• wooden pre-cut banner shapes
• We R Memory Keepers Shape ‘N Tape LINEUP (decorative adhesive sheets)
• Thickers Letter Stickers (these are dimensional letters, not flat)
• Pencil, Scissors, Jute / Twine / Ribbon for stringing, and blue (Painter’s) tape (optional)

Instructions

1. Determine your saying. I wanted to have one saying on one side of the banner and use the other side for something else. I chose “Oh Happy Day!” and “Party Time!” for the other. You’ll see that banner just a bit later because I added a step that you might consider adding.

2. Trace your shapes onto the back of the decorative adhesive sheets after determining the number of each pattern you need.

3. Cut each shape from the sheet and adhere it to the wooden shape. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. If you have a little hang over of the pattern, just wrap it around the edge. Or, you could be like me and cut it to make it line up because it will. not. beat. you. Ahem…

4. Next, I used a piece of blue tape lined up at the bottom of the shape to guide where I would place each letter. It made easy and quick work of adding the letters. Add the letters and punctuation.

So you’ll end up with however many of these easily decorated little shapes. Use the tip of your scissors to poke a hole through the sheet over the pre-drilled holes (do as I say, not as I do). I forgot to do that until I tried to string up my banner and realized, “Yeah, holes would help.”

If You Have Some Time…

For the other side of the same shapes, I wanted to see if a white background would make the colors POP! more. I sealed and painted the shapes white before proceeding with the same steps above.

Because I used the back of the shapes, I should have probably given them a quick sand before sealing and painting, but because I was using the adhesive sheets on top of it, I took the lazy crafter’s way out and just ignored all those “texturizing” bonus bits. Some pieces were smoother than others, so it’s a judgement call.

I can safely say that it makes a difference – a difference in person, people, not in my horrible photos. The colors are more vibrant, specifically the lighter colors.

Either way you decide to go, keep your eye out for these handy pre-drilled garland shapes – they make quick work of a spontaneous soirée or a planned party! Right now, we’re probably hosting a tea party for teddies in tutus but if you could take the time to share this with your friends and followers, we’d really appreciate it!

If you’re looking for more garland ideas, check out this fringe-filled burst of color!