A Banner Year.

As it turns out, the world is against me this month. For some reason that I've been too preoccupied to look too far into, my computer has stopped reading SD cards (and any variation thereof) and I have misplaced my camera cord. Or left it somewhere else. Or did not look for it very hard. Or something.

So this night's blog post is brought to you by my iPhone camera, which usually works fine even for detailed craft pictures but not so much this time. I'll get into that.

Anyway, this post is to show the two more banners I've made to date, perhaps officially qualifying them as a collection? Maybe just an early-stage obsession. One banner is for the dessert table & the other is for the table where Jeremy and I will "sit". And it just occurred to me that now I can make banners for the walls! (I hope there are walls somewhere!)

I started with a stack of SHEETS OF FELT from Jo-Ann's & cut those in halves.

Then I drew (IN PEN because it was the only thing that would show up and I CAN'T CUT STRAIGHT TO SAVE MY LIFE)triangles the same size as the LOVE banner I made (and will probably now discard).

I don't have photos of the next steps, so read carefully. 

1. Choose what you want to say. For this one, which is for our dessert table, I chose "Love is Sweet".

2. Choose your medium. You can be much more creative here than I was, I'm sure. I chose felt for the base (because it's cheap and only ugly when you're reaallly close to it) and pretty leftover fabric squares (from the discount bin found at almost any local craft store) in varying colors for the letters.

3. Decide how to apply letters. Here you can get very creative. 

I chose to pick a font on my computer because I downloaded hundreds of free ones recently that I really liked, and because I'm not consistent with my drawing (it would look as though 5 different people did the letters). I cut out the shapes of the letters and taped them to large fabric squares, the way I did with my props. I then cut the letters out of the fabric and immediately applied Fray Check to the edges. 

OTHER LETTER IDEAS: cut the letters out of pictures of you & your groom or pretty magazine pages, stitch/sew them, hand write them, paint them, stamp them, cut them out of the banner itself (so you're looking through each square/triangle), cut them from favorite t-shirts or vintage aprons, something that belonged to a family member/groom's family. Do anything! Do something that's you.

4. Apply the letters to your base material. I thought about using my hot glue gun but realized that was taking the easy way out and decided to hand-sew them to the felt. Because I don't have a sewing machine. Because I'm an idiot who took on a DIY wedding without a sewing machine.

It's nowhere near perfect, but I like that about it. Nobody would believe I made it if the sewing was impeccable!

5. Try not to throw the whole thing in the trash. For me it was SO MADDENING when I would pull the stitch back through the bottom when it needed to go the opposite way. Just take a deep breath and remember that perfection is stupid, nobody likes it nearly as much as they love the hand-made, quirky homey fun touches that come from being human and doing things yourself!

This next banner is my favorite and was super quick and easy, probably mostly because I didn't take any of the recommended steps!

Again I began by choosing a font and making stencils. This time I did it the opposite way and cut the letter out of the page instead of cutting the page off the letter. Use a blade for this, people!

Then I cut SIX 8" by 8 " squares of UN-IRONED BURLAP. You should probably iron it. Wash it. All that. The lady on the how-to did.

Then you put that stencil paper in the center of that burlap square and you dab paint over it, touch it up, & you have a beautiful R like that one there.

THEN I STITCHED IT TOGETHER WITH GOLD THREAD, WHICH WAS THE BIGGEST PAIN IN MY ASS. DON'T DO IT. Or do, because it took like 10 minutes. It's up to you.