How To: Birthday Banner

This upcoming Thursday is my brother's birthday, so I thought I would get a jump start on things with today's post: how to make a birthday banner. This one is very simple and can turn any room into a party room. All you will need is some colored paper, a marker, string and a hole punch (or anything that can punch holes).

The first step is to cut your paper into small shapes, one for each letter that you are wanting to spell. (For "Happy Birthday" you will need 13 pieces). I chose to cut mine into squares with rounded edges. You can choose to cut the shapes as large or small as you would like, but generally 2"x2" is a good size. Once you have your paper cut, take your marker and write out one letter on each piece. Next, punch a hole on the right and left side of each paper. Take your string (I used birthday wrapping ribbon) and cut it into long strips. You will want a strip for each word, making them slightly different lengths so that the banners droop at different levels. Take your first string and thread it through each letter for your first word. To make things easier for myself, I threaded the middle letter of the word first and worked my way out. When you thread your string/ribbon through the letters, make sure you are threading it so the string is on the back of the letter. Once your first word is spelled out on your string, repeat the steps until all three words are threaded onto their string. Finally, arrange on your wall to display!

Even though I chose to make my banner a birthday banner, you can easily use it to spell out anything, or for a variation, you can easily make this craft into a garland by making the strings longer and using blank shapes instead of letters :)

Hanging Paper Flowers

I found today's craft on Martha Stewart's website. For less than $10 and less than a half hour, you can make 10 of these decorations! They are great for any room, or special occasions such as a wedding or baby shower. Here are the supplies needed:

5 Paper Bags, Scissors, Twine and Double-Sided Tape

I chose brown paper bags and twine because they are very inexpensive in addition to the fact that my bedroom wall is lined with brown butcher paper, so it matches my theme. If you wanted to make these flowers in a different color, you can easily purchase colored paper gift bags. At Rite Aid they were about 50 cents a bag, so still cheap. I know that Martha Stewart already has a pretty extensive how-to, but I thought I would write my own as well :)

The first step is to fold the five bag's bottom in half. Once that is done, cut off all of the bottoms. Cut one bag into a petal shape, then use this bag as a guide and cut all of the others to be the same size/shape. Once all five bags resemble flower petals, take a hole punch, and punch a hole at the bottom center of each bag. You want the hole to be fairly close to the bottom of the bags, but be sure not to have it too close to the bottom in case of tearing (because it is only paper afterall). Once the bags have been hole punched, thread a piece of twine (or yarn) through the holes and tie it loosely. Also during this step, take double-sided tape to tape the 5 bags together. You should use two strips per bags. The strips of tape should be placed as shown above (bottom left picture). Once the bags are taped together, tape the top bag to the bottom bag by opening the bags around the string. 

That's it! The result is a paper flower ready to be hung. I will try to upload another picture soon so that you can see it in scale. They turn out to be a bit larger than a frisbee. I hope you try this one out. It is very very simple and as I mentioned before, you will have enough supplies to make ten :)