Monday, April 22, 2013

Making A No Sew Personalized Pennant Banner

Let me start by saying that I'm not a huge DIY person.   I know my limitations, but that doesn't mean I can't be inspired by others' ideas.  Besides the poms that I put up (yes, I finally put those suckers up)  I wanted something else to go above the Peanut's crib.  Originally I was going to do some artwork above, but then decided that I really liked the pennant banner thing that I'd seen around the internet.  So I scoured the web looking for something fool proof.  I found it at Faye's blog Frugal Faye.  Simple, concise, good pictures, done.  I knew that this was something that my pea brain could tackle.  So now I will recap and show you what I did differently.

The first thing I did was measure where I wanted it to go.  Then steam came out of my ears and my brain shut down.  I have a science background and yet I can't figure out simple math.  Go figure.  I kind of winged the measurement thing and then crossed my fingers and rubbed a rabbit foot and whatever else you do for good luck.  Next I made a mock up of what I wanted it to look like.  I played around a bit with the size of the triangles and then decided to do alternating sizes.  Hey, why not?  



Then I made the official template out of something I found in the rubble of homeless crap in our house.



Next I ironed my fabric inside out just like Faye told me to do.  I think it would have been fine to do it right side out though since I used a disappearing ink fabric pen for the next step.  



I traced my template onto the fabric,



 and then used pinking shears to cut out the triangles.



Now I'm veering from Faye's banner since I'm going to personalize mine.  I knew I wanted to have some lettering on the banner but I had no clue how to do it without making it look like crap.  Before I even started the project I thought maybe I would just have someone with more time and talent make me one on Etsy.  Then I had an idea (twirling my imaginary moustache).  I bought vinyl letter stickers from Michaels.  I know someone out there probably has an easier way of doing this, but this is what I did.

The fabric I was using for the letters was pretty thin so I took some lining fabric that I had leftover from the curtains and used stitch witchery to adhere them together.


Then I stuck the vinyl letters on, cut them out and peeled off the vinyl.




And yes, I really need to invest in a new ironing board cover.  C'est la vie.  

Then I used the stitch witchery again to attach the letters to the pennants.



At this point I went back to Faye's instructions to finish up.  I opened up the pennant, put hot glue in the center and layed my cording down.




Then I used the stitch witchery (this stuff is kinda awesome if you don't want to sew)  again to keep the two sides of the pennant fabric together.  



And voila!  Here it is hung in the girl's room.  One step closer to the reveal!



Thanks to Faye for making this so simple!  I encourage anyone looking to make one of these to check out her blog.

6 comments:

  1. How adorable - and impressive!! I can't believe you made a template first - you undermine your mad DIY skills!! It's so sweet and I can't wait to see the big reveal!

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  2. Very pretty! I am going to have to do this. If you get a chance, please share this on my linky party: http://suburbsmama.blogspot.com/2013/04/sunday-linky-party-4.html

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  3. This is so cute - love the colors and was thinking hope great a banner would be in Will's room at the beach house...must give this a try!!

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  4. I'm so impressed. It looks professionally designed and fabricated!

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  5. What a lovely idea...I love the colors too!

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  6. dude, that's awesome. I love how it spells her name. Where can I put this, hmm....

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