So here's the thing...some people are really good are free hand drawing letters and I just so happen to not be one of those people. So here's a little tutorial on how you can make a glittered letter banner for yourself without agonizing over horribly hand-drawn letters. I will warn you that this is certainly not a quick project, but it is rather simple and quite honestly I haven't found a better way to achieve letters like this (if you have please let me know)!!
I have spotted quite of few of these glittered letter banners around (like this or this or these), but haven't really got around to trying my hand at one until now. I figured if I was going to spend the time making one that I should make a phrase which I could get some use out of in the future so I decided to make a gold glitter "happy birthday" banner for the upcoming Champagne & Desserts party. Since I know some other people who have birthdays, I can't imagine this will be the last time this banner gets used.
The method is similar to what we used for our wedding signs (see that tutorial here) except this time the letters you are printing are to be used as stencils.
what you need:
- 12" by 12" glitter cardstock (you wanna get the reaaaaally thick stuff so that the letters hold up once they are cut) you can generally get about four to five 5 inch tall letters on each piece so plan accordingly
- regular copy paper
- scissors
- exacto knife
- cutting mat
- hole punch
- 1/4" wide ribbon
- Using a simple Microsoft Word document, print out all the letters you will need for your phrase. For my letters which are about 5 inches tall, I used the "bebas neue" font at size 600. In order to save ink, I also changed the letters to an outline rather than a full fill.
- cut out each letter using an exacto knife to get the interior areas.
- trace letters onto the back of your gold glitter cardstock making sure to reverse letters that require it. (one of the best parts about the Bebas font is that many letters that normally would need to be reversed will not require it! yay saving time!)
- cut out each glitter letter and use exacto knife for interior areas
- using a hole punch, punch out two holes about an inch apart at the top of each letter. For some letters you can punch one hole in each part of the letter like the Y or H.
- string your ribbon through each set of hole punches.
- enjoy!
This is a really cool idea! I'm thinking I can do this in my office space as well...with my business/blog name of course. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThis is great, I want to try it. Where did you get the glitter cardstock? There aren't many good craft stores around my apartment, do you know a good online retailer?
ReplyDeleteHave a look on Amazon! http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=gold+glitter+cardstock&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Agold+glitter+cardstock
Deleteso cool! I suck at drawing block letters too :(
ReplyDeleteAwesome idea. I've been wanting to this for ages but it didn't even click with regards to how easy it would be to do myself - I was going to pay a ridiculous amount to someone online to make one! Thanks :)
ReplyDeletethank you so much for sharing this awesome tutorial, natalie! i am excited to try this for my little guy's 1st birthday coming up! ^__^
ReplyDeleteLove your banner so much. I too adore making banners. Smart idea to spray the leaves. I sure do agree with you about $tree. I could go crazy in that place.
ReplyDeletecheap banner