DIY Burlap Pennant Banner

My sister is getting married next weekend! And she might be mad when she reads this but I still have not brought my bridesmaid’s dress to be altered–I’m determined to get it done today. It’s just hard to do that sort of thing with a baby in tow. Anyway, she can’t be that mad at me because I’m helping her with some of the DIY projects for the reception, including this idea she had for a banner to hang over the drinks station. She didn’t really give me much direction. We just talked about what wording to use to succinctly describe alcoholic beverages (we settled on “spirits”) and she supplied me with some burlap and some jute rope.

I started by cutting seven burlap pennants. I looked at various burlap banners on etsy to get an idea of what the dimensions should be. There was a pretty wide variety, so I ended up sort of arbitrarily deciding to make them 6″ wide at the top and 9″ long. For the first one I just measured out each point of the triangle, then connected the dots with a pair of scissors. Then I used that first pennant as a template for the rest.

If I were making this to sell or to use long-term I might consider treating the edges with Fray Check to keep them from unraveling, but since it’s just going to be used for a one time event and I didn’t have any on hand I decided to let it be. With all seven burlap pennants cut out, I lined them up with the rope just to get an idea of the spacing. I had to be quick about it because Pistachio thought the rope was for her.

Next I went to my computer and printed out some large letters. I used the Century Schoolbook font and aimed for them to each be about 4″ tall.

Then I just laid each letter behind a pennant and traced it with a ball point pen. It was easy to see through the open weave of the fabric.

Once I had all my letters traced, I gave each pennant a quick pass with the iron then laid them out on a piece of scrap cardboard

I used a small brush and black acrylic paint to fill in each letter. I was surprised at how quickly this step went. I thought it would be the longest part but it was really only about thirty minutes. Jack played next to me the whole time.

The paint dried really quickly and I flipped them all over to glue them onto the rope. If you look closely here you can see that I made a mistake! I don’t know how it happened. If you don’t see it yet you’ll be as surprised as I was in a moment. Just wait.

To attach each pennant, I ran a line of hot glue along each side of the rope and wrapped the top of the pennant over it, leaving a finished edge from the front.

Once I had them all glued on I excitedly flipped it over to admire my creation, and… lolz. Oops. It seems my letters got mixed up somehow. Haha.

Luckily the great thing about hot glue is that despite its durability it’s actually pretty easy to undo. So in no time at all my error was revised and the banner was complete! Ta-da!

The great thing about this project is that it was so forgiving of errors. The pennants are not all exactly the same shape and the letters are not all perfectly straight and even, but the nature of it is so rustic and casual that you don’t really notice. It was also really easy to knock out with baby around because I could cut out the letters in one sitting, trace them later on, paint them the next day, etc., based on when Jack was napping or content to just hang out with a toy or two while I worked. And bonus: there’s plenty of fabric left over for me to play around with. I think I might actually use it to make some larger burlap flowers to decorate here there wherever at the wedding (Shannon gave her approval). If I get around to it before the big day I’ll be sure to blog about it! Have a great weekend, y’all, and thanks for reading!

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