Shabby book banner tutorial

I love the look of vintage, shabby banners and I wanted to try one with pages from old children's books.  This is an easy and fun tutorial that makes for a lovely accent with your Christmas decorations.  Depending on the book you use, you could leave it up year round. 

Here's what you'll need:
ribbon or twine, glitter, mod podge, hole punch, paint brush, paper cutter and/or scissors, pretty scrapbooking paper, an old children's book.  If you don't have all of these supplies, look around your house and make do!  This is a shabby project after all and does not have to be perfect.  A banner made from a regular book would be pretty also!

Use your paper cutter or scissors to cut flags.  Mine are definitley NOT all the exact same size, so don't worry about perfection.    Punch a hole at the top of the flag. 

Now do the same thing with your scrapbook paper.  Mine came pre-punched.  Lucky me.


Brush the paper lightly with Mod Podge.  Dont' go to heavy or the paper will curl.  You may also want to decide which side you like best if your banner will be hanging against a wall. 


Sprinkle liberally with glitter (as always)!

Do the same thing with your scrapbook paper flags.  If your banner will be hanging in the middle of the room, do this to both sides.  Let one side dry, then move on to the other.   If you don't have the mod podge and the glitter, skip this part honey!  Another variation would be to age the paper instead via coffee and the oven--this would be very pretty with pages from a regular book.  You can look at this past post for details on aging paper from old books:  http://booksenchantedblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/make-your-own-business-cards-using-old.html

Now you should have a big mess of flags.  If you are a planner, you can decide the order you'd like them to hang.  I counted out my Rudolph pages and I had 12, my scrapbook pages were around twice that so I alternated one Rudolph with two scrapbook flags.  You can space them evenly or just throw them up there any ol way.  Either way it will look lovely, I promise. 

I tied a ribbon from the back of a chair to a drawer knob so it would be an easy height to work with.

Then I tied the flags onto the ribbon.  I've done a couple of these, and the organza ribbon tends to slip around less than twine, but either looks pretty.

Now you have a pretty flag banner to hang wherever you like!  Whimsical and shabby!