Whilst out and about recently, I have been seeing a lot of canvas banners for sale with gorgeous inspiring slogans and illustrations on them, and I’m sure you’ve seen them too! Aren’t they just the cutest? Looking at them longingly one day, I suddenly realised that I could probably easily make my very own personal banner, unique to me, and the idea for this DIY was born. After a bit of trial and error, I have come up with a super quick and easy way that we can all make the banners of our dreams, without breaking the bank, and I can’t wait to share it with you. Motivation here we come!
So, the first thing that you will need to do is to find an old tote bag that you don’t need anymore. If you are anything like me this shouldn’t be hard but, if you don’t have thousands just lying around then you can easily pick one up from your local charity shop. When you have sourced a tote bag, you need to take your scissors and cut out a long rectangle between where the handles sit, see the picture above for reference.
Next take your pencil and, with the hem of the tote bag (the folded over edge bit) at the top draw your banner shape. This can be any shape you like, but the shapes that work best are rectangles, triangles and upside down house shapes. I chose to make mine the shape of the latter because I wanted my banner to end in a point, but for there to be enough room to write some great encouragement.
Note: If you are just using a piece of canvas, make sure to make your shape taller as you will need to fold over the top to create a place for the hanging stick to go.
What you will need | Old Tote Bag or Canvas Material | Wooden Dowel/Craft Stick | Scissors | Pencil | Fabric Pens or Sharpies | Black Thread
Now, use your scissors (fabric ones if possible) to cut out your chosen banner shape. This will act as the canvas for your message of motivation, but before you can get scrawling you will need to decide on the message that you want to take centre stage on your new wall hanging! I went for ‘You Go Girl’ because it reminds me of friendship and sounds like something out of a great chick flick so will definitely inspire me. Yes, I do find chick flicks inspiring and no, I’m not sorry! If you are stuck for a message for your banner here’s a few ideas:
Be Bold | Cultivate Kindness | You’ve Got This | Trust Yourself | Together | Make Yourself Proud
Once you have decided on your awesome message, I think the best ones are short and punchy, but it is up to you, it is time to pencil it onto your banner. Maybe get a scrap piece of paper first to play around with your design before you commit. You could even draw it out on tracing paper and lay it over the top of your banner to check it fits!
When you are happy with your message and design, draw it onto your banner using a light pencil. You now have two choices, you can simply draw over your pencil sketch in pen or you can grab a needle and some embroidery thread and get sewing. It’s entirely up to you. I think I must have been feeling particularly lazy because I decided to go for the pen option, but actually I am so pleased with how it turned out! The one thing I would suggest that I didn’t do, would be to get some fabric pens if you are after a really clean look because, as you can see, my brand new, juicy Sharpies ran into the canvas a bit. Although I actually really like how that looks, particularly on the ‘go’, it almost looks like it is glowing. If you are going to stick with normal, permanent markers just take it slow and press very lightly!
So, now you have your message all drawn out (if it goes wrong remember there are two sides to a tote bag, so you can have another go) it is time to turn your bit of material into a banner that you can hang proudly in your home. You need to take your wooden dowel, you can literally buy these for less than £1 at any craft or DIY shop, and put it through the hem of your tote bag, as shown above. For this step you can use anything really, a pencil or even a twig from your garden – it all depends on the look you are going for.
Note: If you are just using canvas material rather than a tote bag for this DIY, then you will just need to fold the top of your banner over and sew along the width to create a channel for your dowel to go through.
Now, all that is left to do is for you to get a piece of black thread and attach it to the dowel on either side of your banner. And, there you have it! You now have your very own motivational banner to hang up and enjoy! What message would you put on yours?
