No Sew Resolution Banner

Today we have a fabulous new years resolution DIY post from artist, Davina Drummond.

"I love the idea of contemplating resolutions for the new year but always get carried away and make a list of twenty and don’t keep to any of them. This year I decided to make it super simple and as a family just make one resolution for 2014 and make a banner to celebrate and remind ourselves of it. We chose to make more adventures because my daughter Elfie has just finally stopped having mid-day naps so we are no longer restricted to be at home 1-3pm and can make more family day trips! This banner is easy to make, involves no sewing and took me about 2.5 hours to create.

What you need to make your Resolution Banner:

1/2 meter of felt for banner background fabric (felt A)

1/4 meter of felt for the text (Felt B)

A sheet of bondaweb or fabric glue

A long thin wooden stick/ pole/ branch even

Good quality sharp fabric scissors

Paper scissors

A large ruler

A sharp pencil

Twine/ ribbon

A hook

A4 paper and an A4 printer (optional)

1. Decide on one resolution - if for your family have a family meeting to discuss it (even with a toddler this can work well).

2. Using chalk and large ruler draw out the shape of your banner on felt A. I made mine 18x18 inches square and then the triangle bottom had a height of 8 inches.

3. Once happy with shape cut it out.

4. Work out sentence and how many words you have and how many letters you want on each line roughly - do this on scrap paper.

5. Make a mini grid of your flag on paper (using centimetres instead of inches to make smaller and plan out letters). I drew a line every 2 cm each direction meaning each letter was 2cm by 2cm so I knew I needed the real letters to be 2 inches by 2 inches to fit all my letters in neatly.

6. Once you know what size you need your letters to be choose a font and print out a few different sizes of a letter to get one that is the right size. I think I ended up using font size 200 and I chose my favourite font Paper Cute. Alternatively freehand draw your letters to make them the right size.

7. Print out your sentence (but if letters are repeated you can delete them for speed as you only need one of each letter at this stage). Cut the letters out.

8. Work out roughly how much Felt B you will need and iron your bondaweb onto it. (Make sure you iron the textured side onto the felt otherwise you will have a sticky iron!). Alternatively trace letters directly onto felt B. cut out and glue letters down.

9. Using a sharp pencil draw around your letters in reverse (so when you stick them down they will be the right way up).

10. Cut letters out and un-peel bondaweb.

11. Place letters on banner and choose where you want them to go.