Crafting a Thanksgiving Banner

I kept seeing all these cute Thanksgiving banners all over blogland. I can't remember which blogs had them, but there are several of them out there and they were all so pretty that I just had to have one too. After some cutting and pasting while watching "America's Funniest Home Videos" I managed to complete my banner and my favor cones both in under an hour with the TV on.

I think it's pretty self explanatory on how to make one, but who doesn't like a good tutorial which photos and tips?

First I used my Cricut to cut out the letters "Give Thanks." I used the Storybook cartridge and I think I cut out 3" letters. (They are the same style of letters I used on my revamped wall plaque and corkboards.)

I then dug through my stash of scrapbook paper to find some designs I liked. I decided to stick with a fairly neutral color scheme so that I can reuse it year and year and it won't clash with my decor. I ended up using 4 different papers to cut out the 10 flags. I just drew a basic template the size I wanted and then used my paper trimmer to cut the edges in the straight line.

Once I had all the banner flags cut out, I lined them up to come up with the best arrangement of the papers. and glued the letters on.

I decided to add a little more interest by creating a scalloped edge. I did this using a paper corner rounder that I purchases several years ago at Wal-Mart in the scrapbooking section. If you remove the plastic guide around the gadget, you can then flip it over and run it along the edge to punch out a scalloped edge. (I can show a more detailed how-to on that if anyone's interested.)

Finally, I simply punched holes in each corner of each flag and threaded a ribbon through the holes. It's now hanging up on my fireplace, but I might move it to the dining room for Thanksgiving day.

It was dark when I was finished so I had to use the dreaded flash to get the picture to not look so awful. The lighting and coloring looks pretty bad in the first photo I posted.

Linking up to DIY Day on A Soft Place to Land.