Who doesn’t love a great Memorial Day picnic or Independence Day barbecue? With Memorial Day right around the corner, we decided to make a decorative banner that could be used for both holidays, or any old time you feel like showing your American pride.
We used an old pair of jeans to make the blue triangles, and canvas fabric for the red and white striped triangles.
We cut our triangles (7 7/8″ long, and 5″ across at the widest point) using pinking shears to create a zigzag edge. We used a star shaped stamp to add white stars to our blue jean fabric. (Don’t have a star shaped stamp? You can cut a potato in half, push a star shaped cookie cutter into the cut end of the potato, cut off the potato around the outside of the cookie cutter and voila! You just made your own stamp! Aren’t you crafty?)
For the red and white striped triangles, we attached painters tape evenly down the front of the triangles, then used red acrylic paint for the stripes.
We noticed that once the canvas was painted, it kept curling up and wouldn’t lay smooth. So we cut triangles out of cardstock just a bit smaller than our fabric triangles and attached it to the back of the fabric.
At this point, you could leave your banner as is and it will look great. We decided to layer a few things onto the blue triangles to create the USA design. First, we used our Cricut “Cindy Loo” cartridge to cut out the square doily for the bottom layer.
We followed the simple instructions in this video from simplekidscrafts.com to make the red paper rosettes, which we attached to our doilies.
Next, we cut circles out of the canvas and attached them to the paper rosettes. Then we used our Cricut “Plantin Schoolbook” cartridge to cut out our USA letters. We used Tim Holtz distress ink in “faded jeans” to stain the letters blue, then attached them to the canvas circles.
We attached two eyelets to the top of each triangle using our We R Memory Keepers Crop-A-Dile Eyelet and Snap Punch. Run some string through the eyelets and you’re ready to hang it!
In the spirit of Memorial Day, we want to take a minute to express our sincere gratitude to the men and women who have given their lives in service to our country. Have a great Memorial Day weekend!
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