DIY Merry Christmas Banner

The Bling on Series of craft hops is one of my absolute favorites,  I have been lucky to participate in several of the bling hops before and am always happy to join in.  You can find the other bloggers posts at the end.
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DIY artwork maybe my favorite home decor project.  The varieties are endless and I love how personal they are.  Hubs recently had a small procedure on his legs and they recommended he stay off his feet for a couple of weeks.  That means not only is he not available to work in the shop, he is around to make sure I don’t use the large saws.   So instead of creating another wood sign, I chose to sew one instead.

You can do this in a no sew version.  Replace the sewing with fusible sewing tape and iron into place.

You will need:

Prewash and iron your fabric.  Cut into a 35″ length by 24″ width rectangle.

With the good side of the material facing down, create a hem on both sides of the rectangle.

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Fold the material over 1/2″ and then 1″.  Press well and sew with a 5/8″ seam.

Turn over the top seam of your rectangle 1/4″ and then 1 1/2 “.

Press very well and then sew along the edge.  This will leave a little extra room to accommodate the doweling.

Fold the bottom of the rectangle up 1″ and press.  You don’t need to sew it yet.

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Fold your material in half lengthwise to find the center.  Make a small chalk mark on the bottom where the center is.

With one hand hold the center and with the other fold over the corner into the middle of the banner forming a triangle.  Repeat on the other side.

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Press very well and then sew a 5/8″ seam along the end.  You will now have a triangle with the point at the bottom of your banner.

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Fold the inside of your banner inside out and sew the central seam.  This will close the triangle so that the point is secure.

Turn right side out and press back into place.  In the following picture, the triangle is pointing down with the inside seam showing for illustration.
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Use instant sew to attach the long portion of the triangle to the back of the banner.  Doing it this way prevents seams from showing in the middle of your banner.

Turn it right side out and iron well.

Make the Template

For my template, I used my cutting machine and good old fashioned freezer paper.  It is by far the best method I have found for stenciling onto fabric.

The text that I used is Sylfaen, the text size is 432.  I cut out the word Merry on one 12 by 24 inch piece and then the word Christmas on a second sheet.

Iron the cut out freezer paper template right on to your fabric, no expensive transfer paper needed.  Iron it on with a dry iron, make sure to iron until all the edges of the letters are sea;ed on the fabric.

Paint the Letters

The most important thing about transferring the letters is using hardly any paint.  Place a tiny bit of paint on a small paintbrush and then dab most of it off onto a rag.

Always apply the paint starting on the transfer paper and pulling onto the open space for lettering.  This helps prevent bleeding.  You will use a tiny bit of paint to do the whole sign.   Let dry well and pull off the freezer paper template.
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To add bling I placed a pretty white sparkly bough around the stop and hung it by the front entrance so when the light comes in through the window it sparkles.