I love cute banners at kids’ parties! They just add so much to the decoration factor. I especially love them when they are personalized! The only downfall to a personalized banner is spending the money. Maybe I am just cheap, but it costs waaaay too much to order one. I am literally going to have this thing hanging in my house for the 3 short hours a kid’s party lasts, and it is going to cost me $30.00?! That’s like paying the banner $10 an hour to just hang out and look pretty! The easy way around is this to make your own. The supplies cost under $10 for everything – even less if you use some craft supplies that you already have. Bonus mom points: Your kids can help you make it, and feel extra special when they look around their party at the cool decor the contributed. They get so excited, and it’s super cute!
Want to know how to do it? Follow the instructions below!
How to Make Your Own “Despicable Me” Party Banner
Step 1:
Gather your supplies.
You will need:
- Fun foam in 2 colors of your choice. I chose yellow and blue since our party had lots of minions, so yellow and blue went best with our take on the “Despicable” theme.
- I like making banners from fun foam. It doesn’t curl in outdoor humidity, and can even withstand a rain shower or getting splashed from the pool. (You can substitute regular poster board if you know your banner won’t get wet or the party will be inside.)
- String or ribbon of your choice
- I used black parachute cord because I had some left over from other crafts. Any kind of string, yarn or ribbon will work, but keep in mind it will show so you want it to match.
- A ruler
- I have a measuring tape pictured above, mainly because I couldn’t find my ruler. Craft supplies literally disappear and reappear at their own will around here.
- Scissors
- Elmer’s glue
- Sticker letters
- You can find these at any craft supply store. They are a little pricey, but I use them for a lot of random crafts so I grab them at Michael’s with a 40% off coupon when I have one.
- Minion stickers
- Totally optional, but the more minions we had at our party the better!
STEP 2:
Decide what you want your banner to say, and how you want it to be displayed.
- You will have 1 letter per triangle piece on your banner, so you need to decide this before you start to cut everything out. Since the party was a “Despicable Me” theme and Emmy was turning 3, I thought a banner saying “DESPICABLE THREE” would be cute. I decided that it would say “DESPICABLE” on the top line and “THREE” on the bottom line with 2 extra blue triangles on each side for Emmy to stick minion stickers. So I knew I would need to cut out 15 yellow triangles and 17 blue triangles.
STEP 3:
Measure and cut out your banner pieces.
- I chose just regular triangles for my banner pieces because they are easy. You are going to want to size your triangles based on the size of letters you have. Since the letters I had were 2 inch letters, I made the top triangles 3 inches wide at the top and 4 inches long from the top to the bottom tip of the triangle.
- Then I followed the same process with the bottom triangles. I wanted about a half inch of the bottom blue triangles to show, so I made them 1 inch bigger. They ended up being 4 inches wide at the top and 5 inches long from the top to the bottom tip of the triangle.
STEP 4:
Glue the pieces together.
- Apply a decent amount of Elmer’s glue to the back of the yellow triangle. Then stick the 2 triangles together.
- Instead of centering the yellow I dropped it down a little bit so that I had some extra room to thread the parachute cord through the top later. Keep gluing all the pieces together until you have all 15 done.
Step 5:
Allow them to dry for a couple hours.
STEP 6:
Stick on your letters.
- The brand I use is called “mambiSTICKS”. I have used them on countless craft projects. You can find these at Michael’s for $7.99 per pack or get them cheaper with a coupon! Gotta love those 40% off coupons!
- Carefully stick the letters on the center of each banner piece. A couple of the letters hung over the edge of the yellow towards the bottom point of the triangle. (You can kind of see what I mean on the letter “h” above.) I used scissors to just trim the little end that didn’t fit. If you want to avoid running into this, just make your triangles a little bigger in step 3.
- This is also when I had Emmy stick her minion stickers of choice onto the 2 blank triangles next to the “THREE”.
STEP 7:
Now it is time to assemble your banner!
- Poke a very small hole (I just use the tip of my scissors) in the 2 top corners of each triangle. The hole should be small enough that the fun foam will hold tight on the cord once it’s threaded (it shouldn’t be able to slide around on it’s own), but you should be able to gently slide the piece along the thread without any problem. I don’t have pictures of how to thread the cord, because I was home by myself with 2 crazy kids and needed both hands to do this task. I did draw you a handy diagram with my mad paint skills. Here it is:
- The cord should come up through the hole on the left, run across the top, and go back through the hole on the right. Do each piece for the top row of the banner, in “DESPICABLE” order, and leave plenty of extra cord on each end for hanging. Repeat for the bottom row, on a new, separate string. Do one minion sticker triangle, followed by “THREE”, and finish with the other minion sticker triangle.
STEP 8:
Hang her up!
- When it is time to hang the banner, I recommend doing the top row first. Make sure it is centered, and do not let it droop too much because you have another row that will be beneath it. Hang the bottom row next. Gently adjust the letters so that everything is centered and evenly spaced. Then take a step back and admire your cute little banner that is all yours for less than $10.00!
PARTY TIME!!!
😉 Kaitlyn