Birthday parties are so much fun. I have always gotten a huge joy out of the planning and executing of a good birthday party. One of the recent trends of birthday parties are banners. They are so cute, add a great touch of personalization, and really are so simple to make at home, by yourself. You don’t need anything fancy (like photoshop) just a basic “paint” type of program will work. Or, if you aren’t very computer savvy you can grab some scrap booking paper that matches your color scheme.

How much paper you buy will depend on what you plan to say, and how big you make each pennant. I chose to go for a layered look with my pennants. Each one got a solid color, then a patterned paper, and lastly the letter. I got three of the largest pennants from each 8 1/2 by 11 paper. I marked out where I needed to cut, then did so. Next I took my striped patterned paper and figured out the size they needed to be in order to leave about a half inch border around them once they were glued to the bigger solid colored paper.

For my letters, I used my computer. I found a font I liked, a sized liked, then typed out our message. Be sure to leave room around each letter in order to cut them out. The letters were printed out on white paper,but I used my paint program to make the background different colors, and the actual letters stayed white. I printed them out and glued all of my pieces together.

To hang, I used some household twine and a hole punch. The size of my pennants allowed me to get two holes perfectly across the top. Then I strung the twine through each hole, overlapping the left from one with the right from another. I hung it with a simple staple on each side. And that is it, not a ton of work for a huge amount of impact.

-Stephanie Wright