DIY Card Box Banner

So excited to share my first real DIY project for the wedding today! Remember the old vintage wooden box I found on the Scenic drive? Well, it was my intention all along to use this for our card box at the wedding next year. And I've seen tons of examples of boxes like this used before, with a banner strung across that says, "CARDS." See Here, Here, and Here for just a few examples of what I'm talking about.

This week I finally got the time to make a banner for our card box. Here's the result:

I love how it turned out. It was exactly what I pictured. And it was pretty easy, too. I just had to think of what I wanted, have a plan of action, then carry out the steps to make it. Which I'll be sharing with you today. It took an afternoon - a good three hours or so I'd say. But I didn't want to rush it, it is our wedding we're talking about here!

Here are the materials I picked up from the store the other day to make it:

I actually got all of these things from Wal-Mart for pretty cheap. A roll of jute string (like twine), a white painters pen, and white craft paint, and I found this pack of pre-cut burlap pennant shapes with adhesive on the back that I figured would work pretty well, and I wouldn't have to cut or measure as much.

The pennant shapes were really easy to work with and there were 6 in the pack. I only needed 5 which was nice, because I had an extra just in case I screwed up!

I lined all of the pieces up that I would need, and set them up against the top of the card box to see if they would fit and how they would look. They were a little too big to fit across the top of the box, so I decided to trim them all a little bit to make them smaller.

I measured 1/4 inch around all sides and drew the outline with a pencil where I was going to trim the edges.

Then I just cut the edges off with scissors, and used that first piece as a template to trim the rest of them to size. The back had paper covering the adhesive, so I drew my cutting line on this side with a pencil.

Then I cut off the excess. That simple!

I measured the width of the box lid to be about 16 inches, so I lined up all of my pennants once I had them all trimmed, and made sure that they lined up to be the width I wanted without looking too curved. It ended up just about perfect for a 16" width.

Now it was time to write the letters on each pennant. I thought about finding an alphabet template online to trace letters, but I couldn't find any I really liked. So I just typed up the letters on my computer and printed them out. 

I knew I needed the letters to be no more than 2 inches wide, so I picked a font that I liked and upped the size until it was the right size to fit onto the pieces of my banner. I ended up with the Baskerville font, bolded and in size 200.

Once I had the letters printed, I just had to cut them all out carefully.

Then I placed them on top of each piece to make sure they were the right size.

It would have been easy just to slap some glue to the back of the letters and stick them on, but I was looking for a more hand done look and wanted the letters to be white. I feel like it looks more vintagey that way.

So I broke out my new paint pen, which was actually pretty fun to use. I don't think I had ever used one before, but I thought it would be best to use this to outline in white as opposed to in pencil. Less to cover up!

I just outlined each letter using the paint pen, and it worked really well. Pretty soon I had my outlines, and just needed to fill the letters in.

I used my white craft paint and a small paint brush to fill in the letters. I had never painted on burlap before, and it wasn't too bad. I found that one brush stroke of paint only went so far though, so I had to dip my brush in paint fairly often to get crisp lines on the edges of the letters.

Pretty soon I had all the pieces of my banner complete! 

To hang the banner, I had a roll of jute, which is like a natural twine.

I just cut a piece of the string to be long enough to hang. Then, since the backs of the banner pieces had adhesive, all I did was peel off the paper backing and stick the pieces onto the string. 

The adhesive is sticky enough for the pieces to adhere to the string, but not permanent so you can peel it off easily. It's kind of like a scotch tape stickiness. It works perfectly for now, but I think I will also put a few dabs of glue on the backs just to secure the pieces onto the string a little better.

To hang the banner onto the box lid, I used a couple of these decorative nails I already had on hand and just hammered them onto the wood to get the banner stuck on there for now. They are still loose enough that we can pull it off if we want to close the box.

And voila! I had my own card box banner!

Love how this project turned out, and Trent really likes it too. That's always a plus. :) We haven't decided yet what we want to do with the box - if we want to leave it the way it is, paint it, maybe white wash it? Not sure yet. All I know is that I want to keep the character and the vintage feel, but maybe just clean it up a little bit. I might even dress it up with a few flowers or some lace. We'll see! Either way, one step closer and one wedding DIY complete!


Linked to: The Pin Junkie, Say G'Day Party, Domestic Superhero.