DIY Thanksgiving Bunting

Hello! I am stopping in quickly tonight to share a little DIY Thanksgiving décor craft with you. I don’t typically publish posts on Sundays, but realized I promised this one at the end of last week! So let’s get to it…

Do you remember when I said I picked up a ton of cute things at Michaels right after Halloween at 80% off? Well, one of the items was a roll of black burlap and it was only $1.99!

Prior to this project, I was a burlap rookie. I had never used it for anything, but continue to see it used everywhere. Well, I technically used some when I tied some pom pom burlap ribbon on our cornstalks and a lantern on my Fall Front Porch, but not actual burlap – just to be clear 🙂

After finding the black burlap, I thought it would be cute to make a DIY Thanksgiving bunting with it. I initially thought I would use my Silhouette Cameo  (I totally heart this thing) & make some gold vinyl letters and adhere them to the burlap, but got home & found some black polka dot craft / wrapping paper I had picked up from Homegoods and decided to use it on top of the burlap instead.

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Here is what I did

I opened up a MS Word document and decided on a font, “AR CENA” and typed out “GIVE THANKS” spacing each letter out so there were 2 letters per page, centered in the middle in landscape layout. Next, I went to the toolbar and clicked “insert” and selected triangle. I added one to the page and then right-clicked & chose “send behind text”. After that, I positioned the letter where I wanted it in the triangle. Then, I right-clicked again and selected “copy” and then pasted a duplicate triangle next to the original. I positioned the new triangle around the next letter and repeated these steps for the remaining letters.

Here is a screenshot in case it doesn’t make sense.

Now that each letter was properly positioned in a triangle, I saved the document and prepared the craft paper since that is what I printed on.

I rolled out the paper and laid a piece of regular copy paper (8.5″ x 11″) down and cut around it. I did this 5 times since there are 10 letters and 2 per page..

This step was a little tricky… I tried to smooth the paper out until it was flat (without the curled edges from being on a wrapping paper roll) so I could insert them into the printer paper tray. A couple of times the edge was curled a little too much still that my printer didn’t read that there was paper in the tray. Once I figured that out, I was good to go! I printed out all of the letters and then cut around the triangles with scissors.

Then, I laid the triangles out on a piece of cut burlap and I cut around each one leaving about 3/4  – 1 inch of burlap showing around the edges.

After that, I flipped over the letters and applied a thin line of Aleene’s Original Tacky Glue (found at Michaels or any other craft store or purchase online here) around the perimeter of the triangle and then centered the paper on top of the burlap and set aside to let dry. I waited about 30 minutes before the creating the holes for the twine to go through.

Next, I took a screwdriver and pushed through the back of the burlap to make 2 small holes to weave my Sisal Twine through. I also <3 this stuff and have used the same roll for a TON of projects.

After I made both holes in each piece, I started threading them on, starting with E and ending with G. I left plenty of extra twine on the ends since I didn’t know how much I would need to hang.

 

*Note: when pushing the screwdriver through, make sure to be as far down from the top as possible, as it is easy for the burlap to come unwoven and then you are left with an unclosed hold. Lesson learned 🙂

Now it is time to hang. I always use clear 3M hooks to hang signs & banners with. They hold up well and are easily removable when it is time to come down. Total bonus.

I pressed the sticky backing of the hook to the trim, tied the left end of the twine into a loop and once it was positioned where I wanted it, I tied the right side off and looped it over the hook on the opposite side (in this case, the top of the trim since I hung at an angle.)

Here it is hung across the window in our kitchen behind the table.

I have hung several banners in this spot because it is a large, open area and you can see it from the front door when you walk in. It’s a focal point of the kitchen, as the window overlooks the backyard and neighborhood from the 2nd level since our house sits on a hill.

There you go! DIY Thanksgiving Bunting completed & hung!

Total project time was approximately 1.5 hours. The tedious parts were designing the letters / arranging the triangles on the computer and then cutting out the paper and bunting.

What do you think? Are you into burlap? What have you made with it? Please do share your thoughts & any project ideas you have!

Later this week, I will be sharing a Thanksgiving tablescape with several simple décor ideas & of course some DIY details as well! Please come back to see more and hang out here again!

Goodnight!