DIY Comic Book Birthday Banner

Materials you'll need for this project:
-3 comic books
-a Sharpie
-scissors
-different colors of cardstock (or white will also work)
-bias tape (you can find this near the zippers at JoAnn's Fabric...pick the color of your choice; I chose red)
-some type of adhesive
-a sewing machine

This is one of my all-time favorite projects that I have ever created for one of my children's birthday parties. It's no surprise that this fun little idea was discovered on Pinterest and that I've been dying to test it out since the day I pinned it. I admit that finding the right comic books for this project is definitely a necessity, depending on what kind of party you are throwing. Since ours was a Marvel/DC mix of superheroes, it was definitely easier to find what I was looking for. Starting with Ebay, I found some really cool comic books that were old school and perfect for this project. However, many of them were bid items and took days for the auction to end. I couldnt' wait that long. Next stop: Toys 'R Us. Yes, they sell comics! At $2.99 a pop, I picked up three different books that would work perfectly.

Follow this link to look at a few photos of how to cut out the comic book triangles. That's right; you just start carefully ripping out the pages you want to make the banner out of and then start cutting yoru triangles. I looked through each comic book carefully before selecting the pages I wanted to use. There were a lot of good choices. I also made sure that I carefully posititioned the triangle shape over the image I wanted or which one I thought would look the best based on the cut.

NOTE CHANGE IN THE DIY PROJECT: If you are reading the link I posted above, I did make a couple of changes to the banner. First, I used different colors of cardstock and backed each comic book triangle. This helped keep each triangle from bending or getting ruined in transport to the party. The idea was genius, if you ask yours truly. It really helped hold the overall shape of the banner and helped tremendously when sewing it with the sewing machine.

Make sure you have the correct setting on your sewing machine.

I used a Sharpie to trace each shape and then used my handy scrapbooking gun to secure each comic book triangle to the cardstock. I pulled out my bias tape and left about 3-4 inches off of one end before starting to assemble the banner. I alternated/patterned out my comic book triangles by Batman, SpiderMan, Captain America, and then the Hulk. Then, I picked up my first triangle and slipped it into the fold of the bias tape. I used a straight stitch setting on my sewing machine and begain sewing across the top. EASY. Once I finished the first triange, I added another one directly next to it and began sewing. For this particular banner, there were ____ triangles total, which was the perfect size to fit across a fireplace mantel or a window.

After sewing the banner, I laid it flat on a table until it was time to hang it for the party. Honestly, that was the best way to store it to ensure that it would look really nice come party day. Hang and voila! It's a really FUN and easy way to decorate for your son's celebration. Bay absolutely adored this banner and wants it to hang in our house forever. I'm pretty attached to it myself.

I didn't end up using all of the bias tape, and after hanging it at the party, I just cut off the excess.

This would also look amazing in a bedroom or in a toy room if you had a comic book theme and of course, if you had the room to hang it. In fact, after writing this blog post a few weeks ago, I decided to hang it on my son's bunk bed across the end against the wall. It looks REALLY awesome! :)

Total Cost for this project: $12.00 or less depending what you have on hand already.
$2.99 for red bias tape
FREE: Cardstock--already had this at home
$2.99 x3 (although could have probably just purchased 2)for comic books

Have fun crafting!

Birthday Banner

This was a super fun project to make. Although I wasted a lot of paper and photo ink, in the end, I now know how to do it wasting less materials. :)

I can totally see my husband shaking his head right now thinking about all of the paper and ink I wasted from his office! LOL

Okay...so when I first saw this idea on Pinterest, I fell in love with it and immediately envisioned how I would make this for Brynn's next birthday party, since she was next in line.

I combed through my photo library (16000+) to find the perfect "face" photos from birth through her fifth year of life. I tried to figure out which faces were about the same distance from the camera and/or about the same size. Then, I edited them and changed the color to black and white.

I then printed out each photo on regular printer paper to figure out how close in size the faces actually were when I lined them up side by side. After re-sizing several of them, some were printed in 4x6, some in 5x7 and some in 8x10. I took some to Costco and printed there, which was, by far the cheapest place to print. I also printed some at home.

I then cut out all of the faces (with her ears attached and some w/ braids intact and lined them up in order from youngest to most current/oldest.

I sorted through my piles of scrapbook paper and found a bunch of different fun patterns to make the hats. I also found a bunch of fun "accessories" to add to the hats, such as little flowers, boa feather material, borders, jewels, stickers, and more. I started mixing and matching the paper w/ the accessories. This was the best part! :)

Then, I cut a triangle shape and used it as a pattern for the rest of the party hats for each head.

After assembling the hats, I had to figure out how to hang this banner. I didn't have the same materials that were shown in the Pinterest photo, so on to Plan B. I attached fishing line to the tops of each hat with scotch tape. Then, I used my scrapbooking gun to secure each baby face to a long piece of ribbon to "anchor" the faces and keep them facing the same way. After some readjusting, Dj helped me hang the banner above our patio doors in the dining room. It turned out perfect.

In hindsight, the banner was a little too long for the area we hung it in. It looked great, but next time, I would make it a bit shorter.

The cost of the project was ink and photo printing, but the rest of the stuff I used to assemble and decorate, I already had on hand.

A fun, easy project that turned out super cute and it was a big hit at the party.

Banner

I'm giddy just thinking about the cuteness this little decoration exhibits.

I crafted something very similar to this little birthday face banner here for Miss Brynn's Bday...can't wait to share it, along with tips on how to make one of your very own for your child's next bday party, which involves less steps than I took to create it for a lot less money & less paper (printer and photo) wasted. It was still worth the trouble, because it turned out lovely.

Thank you, Pinterest for this fabulous idea!

Tutu Bags update

The bags are coming along nicely. They do take awhile to complete b/c I am hand-sewing all of them. I am going to try and re-do the Snow White one b/c there are some issues w/ uneven tulle in the back and it's bothering me. I hope I have enough tulle left over, but if not, I'll just go back to JoAnn's and pick up a little bit more to finish the job. Brynn loves all of them and can't decide which one to choose for herself/her party.

and the boys' favors...

T-shirt super hero capes...more on how to make these later but I must thank Dj for helping me with the stencils b/c it's saving me a lot of time!

Here is a sneak peek! I have a Flash one finished as well (well Flash-Like) but it is upstairs in my bedroom drying. There is a bit of touch-up work to do on the gray Green Lantern one, and I accidentally got a bit of yellow paint on the first Batman cape as you can probably see in the pic...however, I am happy with the overall outcome. I am thinking about making a SuperMan one but the stencil for that one is a bit more complicated than Batman and the Green Lantern. Baylen is now completely in love with these and wants a super hero birthday party...OKAY! :) hahahahaha
At least I know what everyone will get at his party. :)

Princess Bags update

Well, after making a practice bag, I have moved on to trying out the mini princess bags. They take awhile only because I am choosing to sew all of them by hand. I ordered the 6x5 sized bags (in various colors and packs of 4 for $2.99 each) and then went to JoAnn's and bought 3 different colors of tulle to start, along with 2 pieces of sequins. I wasn't going to buy it all if they turned out crappy. Although there is still work to be done on the Snow White one (need to sew down the top of the red sequins) and some trimming of tulle and string, I have finished two this week. Snow White has one more "row" of tulle than the Belle one does, but I chose to do it that way because I think 4 layers is too "poofy."

I think they look pretty cute. I have Cinderella, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty and Jasmine left to make for sure and if I have time, Tiana and Rapunzel. Brynn is loving each one I make and claims each one is hers. I told her to wait until I finish all of them to decide who gets what. They will be used as the favor bags for the girls and then I will stick a princess-inspired bow inside along with a wand and a couple other things I have picked up all summer in the dollar aisles.

The boys' favors are coming...soon. I found a cute idea online, so I am going to attempt to make one this weekend. We'll see how it turns out.

YAY for showers!

Cake pops and new cupcake recipes galore!

This time? Chocolate cake pops. YUMMMM

New cupcake recipes included peanut butter cupcakes made from scratch w/ store-bought chocolate frosting. I used my cool frosting tools from Pampered Chef to make the cool shape on top.

The other new recipe was a vanilla cake with buttercream frosting which I colored pink. They were delish. The frosting was a little runny b/c it was so humid, but I threw them in the fridge for a few minutes to save them.

Lots of compliments to go around and no leftovers at the end. :)