LUCKY St. Patrick’s Day Banner Tutorial {ReMarkableHome.net}

I’m so excited to show you my new St. Patrick’s Day banner! Yesterday, I neglected my housework and spent the afternoon crafting this.  I am in love with it!  I hope you like it, too!

I didn’t take step by step photos, but I will tell you what you need and give you a few pointers on how to make it.  It was actually really easy.  The only problem with it is that it is too long for my mantle and I had to hang it from the wall on either side of the mantle.  SO, be sure you measure your mantle and don’t make the same mistake I did! You can make the elements smaller to shrink the length a bit.  I will tell you what size mine are and you can go from there.  Okie dokie??

Here is a list of the things I used, but feel free to use what you have on hand.  There’s really no right way to make these.  Just start layering things on!

• Ribbon (I used a green grosgrain wired ribbon that was 1.5” wide. Be sure to leave extra on the ends for tying up your banner.  I’d leave at least 24” on each side)
• 6” wide green tulle (the banner is strung on ribbon folded over and then tulle on top of that.  Then I used 20” pieces of tulle to tie the bows between each element.
• Wrapping paper (the green and white polka dot paper is wrapping paper. I used a straight edge to tear the paper into 9.5” High x 7.5” wide rectangles)
• Burlap squares, glued down on a diagonal (mine are 7” square)
• 10 white coffee filters (the underneath one is turned inside out to give it a little more body and dimension)
• Book pages cut into spiky circles. I used my Silhouette, but you could use pinking shears. Mine are 4” diameter
• Green paper shamrocks (Mine are about 3.5” diameter and I cut them from scrapbook paper with my Silhouette. These are inside the coffee filters.)
• Letters to spell LUCKY. ( Mine were cut from green cardstock on my Silhouette and then glittered. The font is called Café Rojo.  You could cut them by hand from glittered paper. Any type of letter will do. Maybe some chipboard letters that you could glitter.)
• Book pages (get a book at the Dollar store or thrift store and cut out the pages with an Exacto knife, utility knife, or rotary cutter.  Mine were about 9” high x 6” wide.  Fold in half gently and cut a wedge out to get the flagged bottom.)
• Scrapbook paper cut in 1/2” strips (mine were pre-cut scrapbooking elements. This is what is on the book pages)
• 2 sheets tissue paper in 6 rainbow colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
• String or wire for the centers of your pom poms
• Distress ink to distress your book pages slightly
• Glitter foam shamrock stickers (I got mine at Walmart. I punched holes in some of them and used the holes as the little accents on the paper shamrocks and by the glittered shamrocks. I attached the letters with double sided foam tape to give them a little dimension)
• Glue (I used Tacky glue and hot glue.  I’d recommend hot glue to attach your burlap and coffee filters to the wrapping paper because I think the tacky glue caused the wrapping paper to roll to the back a little.
• Stapler
• Green glitter to the edges of the book page flags.  I ran a line of tacky glue and then covered it with emerald green glitter.

I just used a long counter to lay out all the elements.  Once I had them the way I wanted I glued them together.  Then I used a stapler to attach them to ribbon and tulle.  Finally I tied the tulle bows and added the glittered shamrocks to the top, one at the top left corner of each of the wrapping paper rectangles.

I will post a tutorial for making the tissue pom poms tomorrow.  They are really easy.  To attach them to the book pages, I just found the center on one side where I could see the string I tied them with and put a glob of hot glue there.  I pressed them to the book pages and then fluffed the front.  I used 8 layers of tissue paper that was 7” square.  For a smaller banner I would make them 5” square and use smaller book pages.