This vintage-inspired mini Thanksgiving banner draws inspiration from various Russian pennants found on Pinterest. Typically, the mini banners are crafted using unfinished blank wood signs. I used a mat board and this same technique to make a Christmas banner a few weeks ago and I love it!
How to Make a Vintage-Inspired Mini Banner
How to Make a Mini Banner – Unique Christmas Decor
Swallowtail Banner Cutouts
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Although I found wooden blanks on Amazon, they measure 6 x 4 – inches. That is larger than what I want for this mini banner. So, I pulled out a piece of mat board left over from a project. The mat board is thicker and heavier than regular poster board. Amazon has a package of mat boards ◄ here. You can also find mat board at your local craft store and anywhere picture framing is done.
To create the swallowtail pennants that measure 4-1/2 x 3 inches, I found a pennant under images on Cricut Design Space, Fleur de Lis Banner #M4624C. I used my Cricut to cut the mat and placed the front-colored side of the mat board facing down. Just search for a pennant template, choose your favorite, and resize it to the dimensions you want. Obviously, I didn’t cut the fleur de Lis, just the flags.
Set the control knob to ‘poster board.’ However, the machine doesn’t cut all the way through, so use a metal ruler and an X-Acto knife to finish cutting the pennants.
The Cricut doesn’t cut the holes all the way through either, but a 1/8-inch hole punch works perfectly to finish the job.
Although the Cricut doesn’t cut the pennants out completely, it makes it easy to follow the lines and cut through the rest of the mat board to have perfectly matching cutouts.
If you don’t have a Cricut, you can draw the flags and cut the shapes with an X-Acto or mat knife and use a hole punch. It’s
a little more tedious, but doable.
Polyurethane Spray the Thanksgiving Graphics
Use polyurethane spray to apply a couple of light coats on the front and the back of the graphics. This helps in two ways. The Tacky glue won’t permeate the layers of polyurethane on the printer paper and cause wrinkles or raised areas and it will help keep the ink colors from bleeding, too.
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Supplies Needed for the Thanksgiving Banner
- Cricut
- Mat board
- X-Acto knife
- Vintage Graphics
- Tacky glue
- Krylon Clear polyurethane spray
- 1/8-inch Hole punch
- Tim Holtz Distress Ink Stamp Pads
- Butcher’s String or Jute twine
- Beads
- Fall decorative papers
Directions for Vintage-Inspired Happy Thanksgiving Banner
- First, cut out as many swallowtail flags as you want from the mat board for your pennant garland.
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Lay out the mat board pennants, the decorative paper pennants, and the vintage graphics. - Then, trace and cut out with scissors, or a paper cutter, or use the Cricut to cut matching flags from decorative paper to cover the white backs of the flags. For the fronts, cut slightly smaller pennants with holes in the same position as the flags.
- Go to The Graphics Fairy and download some of their multitude of free graphics. Click here for a free page of Thanksgiving graphics to get you started.
- Resize the graphics to fit your flags on your favorite photo editing software or site. Print the pictures.
- Spray a couple of light coats of polyurethane on the fronts and the backs of the graphics.
- Cut out the picture graphics and lightly distress the edges.
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Arrange the flags, decorative paper cutouts, and graphics on your work surface. You won’t want all dark backgrounds on one side or all light ones on one side. Arrange them in a balanced fashion. You might want to consider gluing a light graphic on a dark background paper so it shows up better. In the same way, a darker graphic will show up better on lighter colors of decorative paper.
- Use Tim Holtz’s distress ink to antique the edges of the papers.
Apply glue to the back of the decorative paper pennant. Adhere the graphic and add antiquing to the edges of the back. - Once you have the decorative papers and graphics where you want them, glue them to the flags.
- If the pictures on the front slightly cover the holes, just use the 1/8-inch paper punch to remove the excess. Be sure to let the glue dry before doing this to avoid tearing the papers.
Stringing the Flags and Beads
To add a pop of color, use spray paint to coat the plain wooden beads listed above. Feel free to choose any color you prefer.
Follow These Simple Steps to String Your Flags onto Twine:
- Take the twine and thread it through the holes on the first flag.
- As you continue to thread, add beads onto the twine.
- Repeat this process with the remaining flags until they are all strung onto the twine.
- Thread a bead on each end, tie a large knot, and apply Tacky Glue to it before pulling it slightly inside the bead.
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Vintage-Inspired Mini Thanksgiving Banner.
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