On Wednesday I shared my “Merry Christmas” scrapbook cardstock banner with you…
I told you a tale of days gone by before futuristic cutting machines revolutionized the way the Pinterest world crafts for the holidays! And promised to share instructions for making your own holiday typography banner the old-fashioned way.
With scissors.
Gasp!
Now, we’re not going completely stone-age with this, so we will be making use of a computer and a printer for this craft. (Although, the next time I have to buy printer ink, I might as well spend the extra dollar or two to upgrade to a Silhouette Cameo… Ink’s expensive, yo!)
Since I made the Merry Christmas banner so long ago, I decided to make a new one today to show you step by step instructions. But I also decided to keep it simple… three letters: JOY. I know my crafting limits these days.
Step 1
Figure out how big you want to make the letters in your banner. I decided to make mine about 5” tall.
Step 2
Using Photoshop Elements or some other editing program (in the days before I had Photoshop Elements, my program of choice was Microsoft Powerpoint, so it doesn’t have to be fancy!), figure out what font-style and size will work best for your banner.
I made a new canvas that was 5” square, and resized my J until the height filled almost the entire square. I ended up having to size it all the way up 450 pt! I made it the lightest gray possible for printing. (Gotta be stingy with that ink! Feel free to print full-on black if you’re feeling particularly Scrooge McDuck today.)
I repeated this for the O and the Y and then dragged each letter onto a new 8.5” x 11” canvas for easy printing.
Step 3
Assemble your supplies. Printout, scrapbook cardstock, scissors, tape, ribbon/string/twine, hot glue gun…
Step 4: Trim loosely around one of the letters from your printout, and tape the edges of the paper letter to your cardstock.
Step 4
Carefully cut around the edges of your printed letter. This will also be cutting the same shape out of your cardstock beneath it, so be careful to hold both pieces of paper together tightly.
See? Gray-scale J & cardstock J! Success!
Step 5
Repeat for all the other letters. Discard the gray-scale printout letters.
Step 6
Lay out your cardstock letters to determine spacing. (Please excuse the slight wonkiness of my O… These days, I am of the school of good-enough-crafting.)
Step 7
Lay your letters out upside down. Cut a length of your ribbon or string…
Step 8
Hot glue the ribbon to the tops of your letters. Congratulations! You’re done! Hang & EnJOY! (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself)
I hope you had fun getting all retro with me on this craft! The Gathered Home: crafting it old-school. Just remember to take pictures of your crafting supplies now, because one day your kids are gonna be all like, “Mom, what are scissors?”
Pin it if you love it!
love it! and i love that you did it the old fashioned way! i love to cut letters out myself and i jut cut as i please and make them imperfect- works for me! 😉
I agree – I'm all about the imperfect! It's the charm of hand-crafting, right?
The Old Fashioned Way is a good thing and I love how you wrote it on the TV 😉
Turned out great! Pinned!
Thank you Julia! I know many decorators don't like tvs and think they are big black holes in the room, but look how useful they can be! 😉
Hugs for pinning!
I love this! I just might have to get all stone-age and trace the letters myself… I ran out of printer ink years ago and just have never needed to buy it. I'll have to see what a freehand banner looks like…
Oh yeah – Megan for the win! I want to see yours when you're finished! I think it could look so cute freehanded
This is adorable! And while I have a Silhouette, I still like to kick it old school sometimes. 😉 (AKA, sometimes I'm too lazy to get everything out.) 😉
Thanks for linking up to Dare to DIY!
Thanks Kim! Woohoo for kicking it old school 🙂
I love your banner! YAY for doing things the old-fashioned way too! 😀
Thanks Caitlin!!!
Old school is totally the way to go! Very festive!
Thanks Michelle! 😀
Since I'm not one of lucky gals to have a silhouette (and most likely never will) I'll be following your wonderful tutorial since lettering is not my strong suit or the spacing of it. I'm digitally challenged, hey just reading blogs, printing out your projects is a big thing for me, duh. Have to go with what ya have kids. Great tutorial and post. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you as well! I'd love to see how it turns out if you make one of these! 🙂
Such an awesome project, Brynne! Thanks for joining in. I'm featuring you in my post today!
Eep! I'm so excited! Thank you for picking my banner 🙂