Lilly Pulitzer DIY: Make your own Lilly Pulitzer banner

Date: 07/11/2012

Good morning Lilly Lovers! It's a bit of a gray morning here in Huntsville but we do so need the rain and today we've got an easy way for you to brighten up, and Lilly-fy, any occasion or space! Today the Pelican Girls will show you some divine DIY as we walk you through making your very own Lilly Pulitzer banner. So come on, let's get crafty and celebrate colorfully!

Here's the finished result:

Supplies you'll need for your Lilly Pulitzer craft are: Lilly Pulitzer wrapping paper, scissors, a pencil, natural colored cardstock (it's slightly thicker than white), a thin rope (from the ribbon section of most craft stores, a small circle craft punch, a scalloped border craft punch (mine was about 2 inches), rubber cement, sheet of vellum, clothes pins, three-dimensional glue dots, adhesive foam letters, a chipboard or wood pennant in the size and shape desired and a paper trimmer if you're like me and can't cut a straight line.

The first step is to decide what you want your banner to spell. For The Pink Pelican, we used "welcome." Using your chipboard or wood penant shape, trace the number of banners needed on the back of your wrapping paper. If you use triangles, they line up easily and save paper. Use your paper trimmer or scissors to cut each individual piece. Repeat with the needed number of banners on your natural color cardstock. (Our banner is double-sided so we cut twice the number of triangles from the wrapping paper.)

Once they are all cut out use your rubber cement to attach the Lilly Pulitzer wrapping paper to both sides of your cardstock. I love rubber cement, it dries quicker than many other adhesives, is easy to use and dries with no wrinkles in the paper. Apply a super thin layer to one side of your cardstock, wiggle the wrapping paper into place, lightly smooth and repeat steps for the other side. Use clothes pins clipped to each corner to help it stay in place until it dries. If any rubber cement "leaks" over the sides, use your fingers to gently roll it into a ball and it will come right off.

Your next step is to use your small circle punch to create holes in the top two corners of your triangles. Once they are completely dry, punch out your circles.

Figure out where you want your banner to hang and allowing for slack so it has a nice swoop and for some space between triangles, cut a length of the thin rope. I chose rope over ribbon because the rope has a little bit of texture giving you the freedom to slide your letters around until you get the placement right but once they're in place, they won't really slip around.

Using your larger, scalloped circle craft punch, punch out the number of circles needed for your letters from your piece of vellum. We used green. After our scalloped circles were all finished, we attached pink glitter foam adhesive letters in the center of each circle. So they stood out a bit, three three-dimensional glue dots were placed on the back of each vellum circle and then applied to the centerish of each triangle.

Voila! You've created your very own party-perfect Pulitzer banner! You could make them for birthday parties, put names on them and hang them over a bed--the possibilities are endless. Now get out there and make some Lilly. If you DO make a banner, we'd LOVE to see a picture of your colorful creation. PLEASE post it to our Facebook Page or email it to amy(@)thepinkpelican.com You could also make smaller scale ones to be used as cake toppers or even as a Christmas ornament.

Don't forget--the Lilly Pulitzer Fall Collection is coming early to The Pink Pelican! See and shop the latest Lilly at our July 20 Trunk Show. Check out the blog or our Facebook Event for more! Local and long-distance Lilly Lovers will be able to pre-order the Fall Collection while earning gorgeous gifts with purchase. Make sure you're on our email list to receive all the details.