DIY: Cute occasion banner

By Emily

For some reason, I feel the need to put way more effort into the first birthday party we're throwing for my daughter than we ever did for my son. I'm not exactly sure why this is. Is it because she's a girl? Because her birthday falls nine days before Christmas and I want it to stand out? Because I'm trying to make up for the fact that we have taken approximately one-third as many photographs of her in her infancy as we did her older brother?

At the party stores in our area, there seems to be an obscene amount of First Birthday paraphernalia sporting princess slogans and sparkling crowns and tiaras (not exactly what I had in mind). So instead, I'm going to be buying a few things from Etsy and doing a few do-it-yourself projects, the first of which is a Happy Birthday banner. I saw some adorable inspiration while browsing Etsy a few days ago and thought I might be able to replicate them for myself.

 

The only things you'll need for this project are:

Colorful, coordinating papers and white cardstock
A printer
Glue
Scissors
Ruler
Hole punch
Ribbon
Between two and three hours of your time (some of mine were shared with Modern Family and Glee)

The first thing you'll need to do is print out the letters on white cardstock. Choose your font (I used Didot) and color (I went with a chocolate brown instead of black) and use a pretty big point size (I went with 575). I ended up with four letters on each page of my cardstock, because I only had 8x10 sheets, but you could use smaller pieces of cardstock and save yourself a lot of scissor time. I ended up using a small clear coaster to trace a square around each letter (so they would be a uniform size) and then I cut them out.

I mounted the letter on a solid color paper and trimmed it into a nice border, then glued that square onto a coordinating paper and trimmed that one to a nice size as well. I used a book of Martha Stewart papers I bought at Michael's so that I knew they would coordinate well. I used two whole books, which were $5.99 each. I also spent about $5 on ribbon.

After that, I simply used the hole puncher to punch a hole in the top two corners of each letter and threaded my ribbon through. Simple!

I love how it turned out and am pretty sure I'm going to make a Merry Christmas one to hang over our fireplace.

(Sorry for the very DIY photography; I don't have a wall big enough in my house to display them properly!)

Comments

[Jennie]

I recently thought to myself, I'd love to make a banner for Kyle's first birthday. AND THEN YOU PRODUCE THIS. It's as if you Style Lush ESP. Thanks, Emily. This is awesome!

[Leah]

DOH! I'm making a banner for Wombat's birthday (11 days before Christmas), and mine involves sewing (GAH). Wish I'd seen this first, and then maybe I wouldn't be pulling my hair out.

[Elizabeth]

That's adorable! I love it. I totally want to do a Merry Christmas one now.

[Natalie]

I really love this idea! And coming from a 12/29 birthday, she'll really appreciate you making her birthday stand out. December birthdays are tough!!