I’ve been pretty obsessed with bunting for a few weeks. I had a dream I had to make some for my sister’s last minute wedding (she is 19 and not getting married any time soon!) so I decided today I would finally make some. It’s a perfect summer project because it’s quick and instant gratification. And you can use bunting to decorate for all of your backyard bbqs, birthday parties and random get togethers. It’s so simple and so festive at the same time. They’re so neat.
I treated this as my test run bunting. I’ve never made these before, so I wasn’t really expecting anything phenomenal. I’m really happy with it, though. I took pictures along the way, so you can make your own too if you want : )
What you’ll need:
- newspaper (for the bunting)
- newspaper to protect your surface from paint (if you’re worried about this. clearly i am not. paint collects on my desk every day basically)
- scissors (to cut out the template & diamonds)
- ruler (to make the template)
- pencil (to make the template and to trace it onto the newspaper)
- cardboard (for template)
- paint (to paint the newspaper diamonds)
- string/yarn (to string up the bunting)
- anything you want to decorate with (rubber stamps & ink, construction paper, more paint, glitter, magazine clippings, cut out letters, etc [optional])
Step 1 – Cut out a Template
I used cardboard from a frozen chicken nuggets box because it's super sturdy. I plan (hope?) to make many more buntings (such a goofy word) so I want my template to last.
Step 2 – Trace Triangles/Diamonds
You can either trace the entire diamond-shaped template, or you can do what I did and trace half of it on the fold of the newspaper.
Step 3 – Cut Out
My newspaper had two layers, so I ended up with 8 folded triangles. I used the Classifieds so I wouldn't have stories of murdered babies on my bunting (this happened with my newspaper snowflakes). I totally forgot that the obituaries are in the classifieds, though....
Step 4 – Paint your Newspaper (not pictured)
Somehow I forgot to take a picture of the painting process. I used acrylic paint and sponge brushes. I spread a thin but opaque layer of paint over one entire side of each newspaper diamond. I'm sure you could paint the inside if you really wanted, but I think it would just be a waste of paint.
Step 5 – String up your String First
You'll want to set up your string first, and then place each painted newspaper diamond over the string. Once they are arranged (and decorated if wanted) to your liking, just dab some glue/glue stick to the inside of the triangles and glue them shut. i've also seen them hole punched with the string going through each of them, but that seems like more work to me.
Step 6 – Decorate your Triangles (Optional)
I wanted to try out my rubber alphabet stamps on the bunting, but you can do anything you want. I've seen some with one big cut-out or painted-on letter on each triangle, cut and pasted construction paper designs, children's drawings, etc etc etc. the possibilities are endless. I asked Dan to list random words and i stamped based on the list he gave me.
IMPORTANT STEP 7!! Ironing your Bunting
If you find your bunting is rolling up too much because of the paint, you can iron it flat before you decorate it.
You can iron directly onto the paper if you’re careful, or you can put a sheet in between the iron and the newspaper.
My First Random Word Party Bunting!!
CHIN
MACE
MAN
DOG (yellow in honour of Doug from Up)
APPLE
MOUTH (first one i stamped!)
HAT
BUMBLEBEE
I was kind of wary about printing on this dark blue triangle at first since I was using dark blue ink on all of the others. I tried some lighter ink, thinking it wouldn't show up either, but the opposite happened. This light blue ink against the dark blue paint is super shiny and almost metallic looking. It's pretty sweet looking in real life. You can see how shiny it is in Step 6
5 Comments
July 2, 2009 at 4:14 pm
looks better than BCL’s plastic toxic mess
July 3, 2009 at 5:11 am
lol thanks. i’m experimenting with paper, and they’re experimenting with plastic, so i have to respect them for exploring something new.
July 3, 2009 at 7:23 am
[...] on how to make super simple/super effective bunting out of newspaper. You can see a tutorial here. A group of talented ladies and I ended up cutting out, painting and stamping 35 triangles for a [...]
July 4, 2009 at 11:41 pm
I’m thinking that if you used a rotary cutter/xacto knife and a cutting mat, you could cut several of these out at once, and waste less paper.
lay the paper out flat, and then… stack them so they’re all touching.
i can better explain this in person, and i also have both of those things if you want to try it out.
July 4, 2009 at 11:57 pm
i definitely want to try utilizing the entire sheet of newspaper. i just used the existing fold because it was simple and i wanted people to start working on them asap at cnap. i think it’d be easy to just cut diamonds and make my own folds after cutting them out. the rotary cutter idea is genius! i’m pretty sure i have one of those downstairs, but i have no idea where.
are you free on monday or tuesday so we can try this out?