banner

Yes, Easter is just a few days away, but you still have plenty of time to whip up this cute little bunny banner just in time for the holiday. . . especially if you use an inexpensive roll of burlap as your base. Below you can see the basic supplies I used and some are optional, but the best way I’ve found to create a quick banner is to stay clear of large expanses of material and focus on burlap that is more user friendly.

Materials:

Roll of unwired, unfinished burlap
Liquid Fray Stop
Off-white/white acrylic paint
Pink acrylic paint
Bunny template (pdf file)
Pink Stickles (optional)
Medium white pompons
Twine or jute
Fast drying craft glue
Scissors
Foam brush
Small bristle paint brush

Directions:

Cut five strips of burlap from your roll. My roll was four inches wide, so I made each strip eight inches long (Making your length twice as wide as the width is a good rule of thumb).
Cut a triangle out of the bottom of each of the strips to form the banner shape.
On the back of each burlap strip, run a bead of Fray Stop around all the edges. Don’ put it right at the edge, because you want just a wee bit of fraying to occur.
After the Fray Stop has dried, turn your burlap pieces back over and use your foam brush to apply a light coat of white paint to the front of each piece — do not go all the way to the edges.
Print off a copy of the bunny template (pdf file) on a piece of card stock paper, if you have it. Cut out the template to create a bunny shape in the middle of your sheet of paper.
After your white paint has dried, center your template on a burlap piece and using your foam brush dab the pink paint on to create the bunny shape. (Use light coats of paint and add as necessary, but make sure to use a pouncing motion instead of a brushing motion.) Repeat this step for each of the banner pieces.
After the pink paint dries, this next step is optional but I found that it really helped draw attention to the little rabbits. I used pink Stickles and a small bristle brush to cover the pink area with a bit of sparkle. I chose Stickles instead of glitter just for the ease of use. Glitter tends to stick to burlap in all the wrong places.
After everything is dry, use the quick-drying craft glue to adhere your white pompon bunny tails.
When the tails are dry (yes, there are a lot of “watch it dry” moments in this project), slightly fray the edges of each of your banners.
Lay out your banner pieces with desired spacing and cut a length of twine/jute to span the distance, adding a foot or so at each end for hanging.
Flip over each banner, run a bead of quick-drying craft glue along the top back edge of each banner and lay your twine or jute in the glue to dry. And yes, that’s the last time you have to watch it dry, because you’re officially finished. Just hang and enjoy!

Shared at:
What’s It Wednesday @ Ivy and Elephants
WWAW @ Green Willow Pond
Pin It Monday @ Pursuit of Functional Home
Wow Us Wednesday @ Savvy Southern Style
That DIY Party @ DIY Showoff

Yesterday I told you that my three-year-old son and I spent part of our snow day creating a cute little Valentine project, so today I thought I would share our kid-friendly craft with all of you (especially if you’re still stuck inside from this week’s storm). I came up with this quick banner idea by combining a couple of Pinterest projects with some of my son’s favorite things — paint and glue.

To create your own Valentine banner you will need:

brown paper lunch bags
empty toilet paper/paper towel roll
red washable paint
scissors
glue
string

To begin the project, cut a paper bag right above the bottom fold. Then cute along the two outside edges to give you two rectangular banner pieces. If you want, you can cut a triangle out of each of those pieces or just leave them square on the bottom. Cut as many bags as you desire for your project. If your child is old enough to handle the scissors, great but make sure an adult supervises this task (I let my three year old, cut on some scrap pieces, but he wasn’t up for the first part of this project).

Next, shape the empty toilet paper roll into a heart. I started by creasing the top inward, being carefully not to make creases in the rounded parts of the heart, and then I creased the bottom point of the heart. After you have the shape to your liking, pour some washable paint on a paper plate. Have your child grasp the TP heart roll around the middle to hold its shape, dip an end into the paint and stamp it onto each banner piece. Your child can redip as necessary.

After the paint dries, flip over each banner piece and run a bead of glue along the top of each one. My son loved doing this and it really didn’t matter that he got a little sloppy (you might want to cover your work space before this step). Meanwhile, I cut string long enough to span each banner with a small gap between and extra for tying off at the ends. After the glue was in place, I came along and pushed the string into each bead of glue. We let it dry over night and by the next day we had a truly heart-warming Valentine banner to hang about the house.

If watching your youngest glue paper bags to his fingers, the table and the cat is not your idea of a good time, you might try one of these alternative methods. 1) Punch a hole at the top of each side of your banner pieces and run the string through the holes to create your finished banner. 2) Fold the top of each banner piece over the piece of string and staple the flap in place to create your finished banner. Which ever finishing touch your choose, pick one that works best with your child’s taste and strengths (and your mama mess index).

Tag: banner

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