Handmade Paper Banner!

Level: Easy

Time: 15 minutes if your paper is already made

Cost: Under $5

Today, this beautiful Earth Day, we're excited to share a simple way to add a handmade touch to any event! A beautiful handmade paper banner! Please check out our tutorial on making paper if you haven't already made your paper for this project. We recommend making thicker paper (6 pages per double page newspaper spread) for this banner because it will hold up longer and withstand more moving and blowing in the wind.

What you will need:

Homemade Paper-Thick- and the number of pages needed to spell out your banner message

(we are halving our 4x6" paper since we want a smaller banner).

Jute Cord or similar (for banner string)

Marker(s) (ink or paint also work depending on how you want to letter your banner)

Pencil

Hole Punch

If you are dividing your paper for a smaller banner, you will need to start by folding your paper, NOT percisely, first one way, then back the other way.

Your paper will likely have places where the fold is not straight, this is ok as it will allow the tear to look like a deckle edge.

Place the paper on a flat surface and place your hands, palm down, on either side of your crease and slowly pull your hands away from each other starting at your finger tips.

Continue until you have torn the length of the paper. Do this until the number of pages or the size of pages you desire.

Now, figure out where you'll want to punch the holes in the banner pages. It's important to remember the more paper between the edges and the holes the better; this will reduce the chance of tearing. We recommend punching one page at a time since each handmade page is probably a little different. Because we couldn't find our single hole punch we used our triple punch and put our paper as far back as possible and allowed for 1/2" from the edge to the hole punch.

Once you have all your banner pages punched, you'll need to letter them. If you are not comfortable freehanding your banner, use a pencil to letter your pages first.

Then use your marker to trace over your letters.

Arrange your letters (in order) and measure the total width of your banner pages (or space you'll want your banner to hang) and add at least a foot to that measurement for your string.

Now, starting with the middle letter (this will limit the length of string your pages must slide along to be placed where they need to be on the string), thread from the back of the page towards the front then continue across the front and thread through the other hole towards the back of the page.

Continue this process until you reach the end of the banner message, then thread the other side of the banner, making sure the letters are being thread in the reverse order so the beginning of the message is the last letter to be thread.

And you've finished your banner! We're sure it looks great, so why don't you snap a pic and post in the comments below to let us see your masterpiece! Also, this DIY chalkboard will be our featured post next wednesday!