Graduation Banner Tutorial!

Congrats Emma!

My baby is graduating from KSU next month and we’re doing an open house to celebrate! Way to go Emma! This is the picture that is going on her graduation announcement…isn’t it awesome! Her friend Joseph took it on the day she and Tim were having their engagement pictures taken by the one and only Daley Hake…have you seen his work? You gotta run over and check him out. The guy has mad camera skills! Anyhoo, this picture is the flavor-flav I want the Graduation Open House to have…

I wanted to make a banner for the open house…but as always, I’m on a budget. I found these (not exactly right colored) letters at Archives (my local paper store) for $1.99 a pack!!!! I bought 2. I had no idea what exactly I’d do with them to make them work but I was pretty sure I’d figure out something!

I looooove paint! It makes everything better! And to give them a grungy look I outlined them with a brown watercolor pencil and then wet my finger and smeared away…

Then I cut out flags from great looking paper!

And then I did what I always do with almost any craft…I got out the Mod Podge…The letters were supposed to be sticky but they were heavier than the paper flags so…Mod Podge to the rescue! I got carried away and also spread Mod Podge over the entire flag once the letters were glued on…it was great! They dried feeling almost plastic! 

 

After the letters on and the fronts of the flags were dry(this doesn’t take very long) I folded a bit at the to of the flag, trimed the 2 corners and used a funky yarn to hang them on…

You guessed it, I used my Mod Podge to glue the flags to the yarn, spacing about an inch apart. (I also used 4 strands of the yarn and cut it REALLY long. you may need lots of extra yarn on each side depending on where you hang it!)  Oh and ribbon or twine would work great depending on what flavor-flav you are going with~

Now…I thought they needed a little bling…so some scrap-book cut-outs and flowers and a button here and there was perfect! Have fun with this part!

Here are some close ups of the bling! (My paper store has die-cuts that you can use for absolutely free. So I take my paper scraps in there every so often and leave with lots of fun shapes! But you can also buy shapes at the craft stores!)

I found a pack of these fun flowers at Michael’s on big sale!

 

Oh and I forgot to mention my AMAZING almost son-in law Tim is also graduating from KSU in May! I had to make a TIM flag!

So there you have it! Since they are getting married in September this banner may just show up at a couples shower this summer!

oh and I have to show you a few of Daley Hake’s photos of Tim and Em’s engagement shoot

Loves me some Daley Hake and some Tim & Em!!!!