Making an amazing, professional, and clean looking banner doesn’t have to be hard or cost a lot of money! I am so excited to share this amazing tutorial with you today. I was able to make a 20-letter banner for our wedding in about one hour total, for only $20. I loved the idea of printing onto fabric instead of paper, which really elevated the project and made it look so amazing. You will not believe how easy this is to make!
The results of this DIY are amazing. It is so simple and takes so little effort overall. Definitely one of my favorite craft projects so far. I found the instructions from Ella Claire and it was too wonderful not to try! And it really is perfect in time for valentines day.
So let’s get to it… here’s how I made it!
Tools and Supplies:
- Sharp pair of scissors (I’m obsessed with my cutco scissors, but here is a less expensive one!)
- Printer (I love my brother printer)
- Fabric (I used this fabric)
- Full page printable labels
- Mini Clothespins
- String or ribbon (this one is so cute!)
Step One: Iron fabric
The first thing you want to do is iron your fabric so it is perfectly neat and flat. Kinked fabric will not go through your printer.
Step Two: Stick labels to fabric
Peel the full-page labels off their backing and stick them to the fabric. I was able to get 10 sheets of “paper” out of 1.5 yards of fabric. Don’t worry about sticking them straight because you will just be cutting them out. Try to find the most space efficient way to lay them out.
Step Three: Cut to paper size
Next, simply cut around your full-page labels. When cut out, this should leave you with printer sized sheets of fabric (8.5×11 inches). One side will have the fabric on it, the other the label. See the photo below.
Sharp scissors are a must here. I tried using my messy well-used craft scissors but they were just making frays and frustrating me no end. So I switched to using my amazing cutco scissors and they were perfect.
Step Four: Print
Now this is the part that would be the easiest to mess up. Run a test sheet through your printer, making sure you mark which direction it is loaded in. Use this as a guide to help you load the fabric correctly for printing. For example, if the mark you made was facing up and it prints on the opposite side, you will want to load fabric side down. This is the case with my printer, but everyones may be different.
I load mine one sheet at a time, with no other paper in the paper tray, so that the printer doesn’t have the chance to accidentally pull up two sheets.
Make sure you set your printer setting to “thick paper.”
The just go through one at a time and print out all the letters you need for your banner.
If you need a template to add your letters to- don’t worry! I’ve made one for you. I’ve made both a microsoft word template and an editable pdf.
Step Five: Cut out and hang!
The last step is to cut out your printed fabric pennant letters! You can see the outlines of the pennants I cut on in the photo above.
I hung my letters on a string using mini clothespins. You can also hot glue letters to a cute ribbon. I liked using the clothespins because your letters are then removable and reusable- you can see in the photo below how I originally used my letters, but I reused them to make the cute “love” banner you are also seeing.
The banner was definitely a hit at our wedding! Our place card set up was so cute and unique. I will probably post a tutorial on how to make the place card ladders. We had our guests replace their place cards with an instant photo of themselves! The instant are some of my favorite pictures from our wedding. Gotta love those instax mini cameras!!
You can see in the photos the fabric absorbed some of the ink from the printer, leaving a cool faded vintage looking effect, which was just what I wanted. The letters were definitely big and clear enough for everyone to read.
And how cute does it look? I love it.
I am so excited about this awesome technique- I’m going to use it to make cute holiday banners too! I definitely could not be more happy about how these pennants turned out.
Let me know how printing your own fabric banner goes for you!
Jenny says
You can never go wrong with printing graphic images or letters on fabric. Fabric tend to last longer since you can wash them, keep them, iron them, and then hang them back again. This is a pretty detailed instructions on making the banner a do-it-yourself thing. :)
Lee says
Thank you for a great tutorial. I love the 2 ladder-looking displays you used to hang your pendants. Did you DIY those?
Susie says
Yes! I plan to post a tutorial in the future, but I need to get some better pictures first.
Monica says
Great project! Did you leave the label sticker on the back of the fabric after it was printed, or did you remove it?
Susie says
I removed it