DIY: Easy Jute Banner Tutorial

I thought that since some of you are still on vacay, I'd share a quick tutorial with you. My girls watched entirely too many Christmas movies while I crafted, but I ended up with some cuteness! Here's a quick project that you can work on if you have some free time. 


I made two of these banners as Christmas gifts this year, but they could easily be edited to fit other seasons or holidays.

I was inspired by Miss Mustard Seed, and I wish I had remembered to bookmark her link before I worked on the project, because hers is way cuter!!! I kept the idea in my head, and I needed some Christmas gifts, so the banner was born, so to speak.

Susie over at Susie Harris introduced us to the joys of jute upholstery webbing over the last few months. 


I finally remembered to scout some out a few weeks ago at Wal-Mart's fabric department, and was surprised to learn that it was only about $0.67 a yard! Naturally, I bought about 5 yards of the stuff, and I know I'll be back for more!


I couldn't find chipboard letters in the 'Burg to save my life, so I had to make letters from scratch!


I started with my Cricut machine, cutting some letters about 4 1/2 inches in size onto scrap paper. If you don't have a Cricut, try a stencil, freehand, or print something out from MS Word.


I traced my letters onto cardboard, cut them out with a box cutter, and gave them a coat or two of acrylic craft paint. I went for "JOY," but you could try "SNOW" and use white/silver glitter.

After that, I used some Martha Stewart glitter glue and Martha Stewart red tinsel glitter to hide the messy edges fancy the edges up. 

While the glitter dried, I got to work on the jute upholstery webbing.


I measured out about how long I wanted my banner to be, and cut the bottom so it wouldn't be a plain old straight edge.

I folded the top half over and pressed it for a clean edge, then sewed a straight seam to keep it together.

Then I hand-stitched a D-ring (available in the sewing notions aisle at any craft store) to line up with the seam. This turns into the hanger.

The green wire you see is the florist's wire I used to keep my ribbon together. I forced it through the jute and wrapped it around the D-ring to stabilize it. 


If you prefer a plain banner, there's no need for a ribbon, but I used wired ribbon that I had on hand (yay!) to dress it up a little bit.

I lined my letters up to the side of where I wanted them to stay on the banner, then I hot glued them down.

Voila!

Like I said, this would be easy to make for winter decor, after your Christmas is put away and the house is feeling bare.


I saw some jute webbing online with black threading. That could be fun too!


This was a very affordable craft. The webbing was less than a dollar a yard, I already had the ribbon, and I used a coupon for the Martha Stewart stuff. You can't beat that!


Check out Kimba at A Soft Place to Land for her weekly DIY party. You're sure to find some inspiration here!


Hope everyone is enjoying their post-Christmas family time. I'll share some more about our Christmas this week.