On a Whim.

I received an Oriental Trading Company magazine, WEDDING EDITION. It was so great, the prices are amazing. In the magazine, there were a lot of cute banners in my colors. I thought about ordering a few, but I realized banners are one of the easiest things to make, and the funnest. 

I have a few ideas for burlap banners, but it turns out the roll of burlap I bought is not a tight enough weave for that particular project. I did, however, have a stack of paper about as tall as I am as well as 4 cardboard triangles leftover from a baby shower project.

So! I spent a good 20 minutes choosing a font, printed out some letters, and gathered my supplies!

At first I wanted to cover the triangles with paper and then glue the letters on. But with a patterned background they didn't POP unless they were black, and I'm avoiding black as much as possible. So I decided to cut the letters out of the background papers themselves.

1. I traced the cardboard triangles onto patterned paper and cut out pretty new triangles.

2. I placed the paper triangles over a foam sheet, then taped my letter OVER the triangle paper.

3. With my XACTO knife, I began tracing the letter. Then I realized it was easier to serrate the edges of the letter, meaning I poked a hundred little holes around the letter.

4. When I took my stencil off, I had this same E on my pretty triangle and poked it out with my blade. Now I had a triangle with an E cut out of it.

5. I took the gold stamp pad and rubbed it on the cardboard triangle where the E would go, so it was gold instead of brown. I glued my paper onto my triangle with hot glue.

It actually did not take as long as I'd thought it would once I mastered cutting out my letters. Now I will take a file to the edges of the paper so they lay down smooth, then put twine through my holes and TA-DA!!!