Hi, friends! I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend.
Since my last post here on Or So She Says, I turned the big 3-0, and my hubby surprised me with the gift of flying out my sister for five days of sister time (the sneaky bugger). It was truly one of the best gifts I could have ever imagined. (Thank you, Mark!)
One highlight of Lisbeth’s visit was our day trip to New Smyrna Beach, FL, the shark attack capital of the world! We were only so brave as to dip our toes in the water.
Another high point of her visit was a crafternoon spent working together on a banner to hang above her books in her bedroom. It only seemed fitting to use book pages as our primary material and to incorporate a quote by one of our favorite authors, C.S. Lewis: “We read to know we are not alone.” How true, Mr. Lewis. How true.
Book Page Banner Tutorial
Step 1. Cut your bunting. I whipped up a 5″ x 7″ shape for the bunting in Silhouette Studio using the line tool and “snap to grid” setting to keep everything symmetrical. Then, I cut 9 of our bunting shapes on 65 lb. white cardstock to help give our thin book pages some firm support. If you don’t have a Silhouette, a good old-fashioned ruler and x-acto knife will do the trick!
Step 2. Gather your pages. Books are sacred to me; so, when it comes to tearing them apart for craft projects, I have resolved to only using damaged books. I recently picked up a copy of Webster’s Dictionary from 1991 for $1.99 at a thrift store. It boasted a broken binding and water stains. Sounds like a cry for re-purposing in a craft project if you ask me!
Lisbeth sifted through the dictionary to find pages with words or images that caught her eye. Some of her picks included “sister,” “book,” and “euphonium” (her band instrument of choice). We found that ripping out the pages sometimes crumpled the edge, so instead, we placed a piece of cardstock behind the page and used an x-acto knife to cut it out of the book with ease.
Step 3. Glue the pages to the bunting. I recently heard about the Zig Stick from some of my Silhouette buddies and picked one up at my local Hobby Lobby. The neat thing about the Zig Stick is that it is a permanent adhesive when used wet and is removable when used dry. How nifty!
We applied the Zig Stick glue to the cardstock and adhered the book page before the glue dried. Here’s where it was very important to press out those air bubbles and make sure the book page dried flat. We even pressed them in the dictionary for good measure.
Step 6. Glue the words to the banner. Reaching for the Zig Stick yet again, we applied the words to the banner approximately 5/8″ from the top, using a seam gauge to help with measurements.
Step 7. Outline the text in pencil. We decided to outline the text in pencil to help the words really stand out.
Step 8. Secure the bunting to some string. I had some off-white yarn on hand, so I used my Elmer’s Craft Bond fabric & paper glue to secure the cardstock to the string, spacing the bunting approximately 2.5″
apart.
Step 9. Add some pom poms for extra whimsy! If you’ve never made pom poms before, now’s your chance! They’re super easy and are a great embellishment to add to almost any banner, wreath or gift wrap. Here’s the how-to in four simple steps:
And after making two pom poms and tying them onto the ends of our banner, our project was complete! Here we are, channeling our inner Vanna White. Whad’ya think?
Lisbeth and I were really pleased with how the book page banner turned out; but even moreso, we were just tickled pink that we got to work on this project together. So, I highly recommend calling up a friend or family member to plan a crafternoon together this month. Crafting is always more fun when done with a buddy. Don’t you agree?
Free Cut File
For those of you with own digital craft-cutter, I’m happy to share the cut file I created with y’all for FREE. [Fine print: This design is for personal use and not to be used for commercial purposes.] Just click here or on the image below to download the file from box.com, which contains both the bunting shape and the C.S. Lewis quote.
Interested in more banners? Or more Silhouette projects? I’d love for you to stop by The Thinking Closet to check out my Burlap Love Banner & Free Cut File and catalog of Silhouette projects.
Thanks for reading along, friends, and happy spring!