DIY Wedding Banner

So one of the first (of many) wedding crafts I have decided to share with you is one of the more simple ones.  Duck and I needed decorations for our sweetheart table, something different from our centerpieces at the rest of the tables, so I decided on a banner decoration since my bouquets will be on the table itself.

Inspired by the Steampunk Bride

Did I mention that we are having a "Touch of Steampunk" wedding? I love Steampunk, and Duck is quirky so he was willing to let me choose such a non-traditional theme. So back to the banner ...

First I started off by making stencils on my computer.  It was pretty simple, I just found some simple gears with some help of Google and stretched them to about 6 inches across (since my scrapbook paper was 12 inches by 12 inches) and printed them out on sketchbook paper.  I chose sketchbook paper because its thicker than computer paper so it would hold up to repeated use, but not so thick that my finicky printer would have problems with it.

I cut out the outside with scissors, but used an Xacto blade on the inside circles so they wouldn't get messed up from folding (especially the smaller bits).  I also made "Mr & Mrs" stencils as well from a script-y font that I used on the wedding programs.  We (my bridesmaids and I) stenciled the gears on various scrapbook papers (I forgot to take a picture of the papers beforehand) and the letters on glittery paper (cause it was sparkly and I couldn't resist!)

We also kinda figured that would make the "Mr & Mrs" stand out from the rest of the banner ... because, c'mon sparkly! Did I mention my wedding colors are Aquamarine and Copper?

I would say my Xacto knife was the most helpful tool for cutting out the stencil for the script-y letters because I was able to cut out the inner shapes and the tight curves pretty well.  You could do they with scissors too, just be super patient and careful.

The letter stencils are going to be super delicate so be very careful!

Make sure when you trace it that you trace the reverse side (flip it over) when working on the wrong side of the scrapbook papers, or the letters will come out backwards.  This won't be a big deal for the gears, but it is for the letters, so double check!

Also, make sure you keep an eye on any kitty helpers, because they like glitter too and will steal scrapbook paper while you are distracted.  Boo thinks she is sooooo sneaky (she's really not, not at all!).

For the regular scrapbook paper, you could probably use scissors to cut out the outlines, but the glitter paper was really thick and I had to use the Xacto knifes to cut them out because the paper didn't take to bending very well.

Be careful when you are cutting because, as I have found, it is easy to cut too far into those little connector pieces and the only way to fix it is with some tape from the backside (and to hope it stays).  You can see the shininess of the tape in the above picture, where I had to doctor my poor M in "Mrs".

Once I was finished cutting out all of the shapes, I laid out a piece of thin ribbon (I used one of the cheap 50 cent spools from Joann's) and arranged them in an order I liked.

Then I hot glued the shapes to the ribbon, and ta-dah! I had a table garland-banner-thingy:

Overall, I would say that this was definitely one of my simpler projects I have done for the wedding, and one of the cutest.  You could use this type of garland for all sorts of uses, like aisle decorations, alter decorations, wall hangings, etc.  It really multi-functional, so I decided to use all my extra shapes (they were A LOT of them) and make a single, long garland just in case I need it for something.

I hope you enjoyed this simple project, I know I did!