Fall Book Page Banner

I recently saw this darling banner made from book pages on Heather Bullard's site. She has a beautiful blog filled with tons of eye candy. I love decorating or doing projects with book pages, so I really wanted to make a banner for my mantle. It was quick, easy, and my daughter was able to join in the fun too!

Supplies needed: old book pages, pencil, scissors, watercolors & brush, letters, twine, glue, and leaf cookie cutter.

First, I used old book pages and drew a large leaf free hand. Then cut them out. For the smaller leaf I used a leaf cookie cutter I had in my stash and used it for tracing. After cutting out all my leaves, I laid them down on some paper ready to be painting.

With my daughter's help, we painted the leaves different fall shades and let them dry.

After drying for a bit, we stacked one leaf on top of another in pretty color combinations. I just glued the top of the smaller leaf down so the banner had some movement. Earlier, I had chosen the word blessed and searched through my collection of ABCs for the letters I needed. (I seriously hoard letters...lol. Maybe it's the elementary teacher in me. I don't know. The scrapbook aisle at Michaels with all the letters...hold me back. Thank goodness they are not too pricey!)

The letters were glued to the top leaf, then turned upside down so I could hot glue the twine along the top of each leaf. Just a bit of advice...make sure the word is going the right direction when you turn it around. Yep. I did it. I glued the whole thing down, turned it around...smiles & happiness. Until I saw that I had glued the entire word backwards. My little assistant thought that was the funniest thing ever. :)

But, in the end...here is how it turned out. Super cute! It dresses up the mirror on my mantle just enough and reminds us of all the many blessings we have this season. 

I am joining the craftiness with Jaime over at Crafty, Scrappy, Happy. 

I love handmade things, don't you? :)