I have a little something for you today…if you want it. 🙂 You may have noticed tiny little banners in the background of the photos of my Irish Coffee Toffee yesterday.
Yep. Those banners. I made them just for St. Patrick’s Day. When they were done, I loved them so much that I wanted to share them – with you!
I’ve been seeing these itty bitty banners for sale on etsy a lot, and I knew I could pull together my own instead of paying for one, so I made one for my birthday a couple of weeks ago.
See it back there? I know it’s hard to tell, but I made that one out of scrapbook paper in colors to match my cake. I can’t even express how in love I was with it when it was done. And if I could express it, I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t want you to think I was weird. 😉
For this banner, I didn’t have scrapbook paper that made me think of St. Patrick’s Day, so I turned to Photoshop. I made all the little flags myself, then cut and assembled everythng. Some of the flags on the banner are adorned with gingham, four leaf clovers, and rainbows, while the other flags have letters that spell out Happy St. Patrick’s Day. All of the flags are double sided too, so you can hang them anywhere!To make these adorable, petite banners, just click the link to the PDF file at the bottom of the page, print on heavy white paper, and follow the steps in this post.
Once printed, cut along the diagonal lines between the images until you have long strips of paper…
…like so.
Next, cut each of the images from the strips by cutting the opposite diagonals. You’ll be left with a whole bunch of tiny diamonds.
To make these diamonds into flags you just have to fold them in half. Line the long points up with each other then press to create a crease in the center. Once you have all of the flags folded you need to glue them to ribbon or silk cord. I chose to use small green rickrack, but I don’t recommend this unless you plan to hang your banner against a flat surface. The rickrack isn’t flexible enough to allow the banner free movement when it’s hanging away from the wall. Each flag, once folded, only measures about one-inch long and about three-quarters of an inch wide, so the ribbon or cord will need to be thin.
To attach the flags to the ribbon, dab craft or tacky glue onto the inside of one side of the flag. Line the ribbon up in the crease of the flag and press the flag together to seal it. Make sure that you put glue all the way up to the crease in the flag so that the ribbon gets glued in place and can’t slide.
I chose to sacrifice having a double sided banner for the words so that I could put sweet, little, green gingham bows for accent.. I used Martha Stewart’s Ribbon Bow Punch to make perfect little bows (at the perfect size too).
These charming banners add a a cute touch to any setting. I hope you love them as much as I do! Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Enjoy!
To make the banner, click on the link(s) below, then click File > Save as or Print. Print at 100%, do not scale, on heavy bright white paper, cut out, and assemble as directed above.
I did a quick tutorial on how to make a fabric version of the bunting banners on my little blog the other day.
Not nearly as dainty, but if you’re after a bigger version, check it out : http://ritafisher.blogspot.com/2011/03/bright-funky-bunting.html
so cute!