DIY Cookie Booth Banner - Bling Your Booth
For those of us involved in Girl Scouts - cookie season is big business. It’s the time of year that we’re super busy helping our girls earn enough money to pay for their troop expenses for the year. All three of my daughters are involved with scouts so we’re ALL IN in this house. Every year, we make paper decorations for our booths. This year I thought I’d try making a few decorations that could be reused year after year.
Since it’s scouts and money can never stretch far enough I turned to felt and yarn. Two inexpensive, easy to find craft materials that are more durable than paper. This is my first project to bling our booths. I’m loving how it turned out! I’m also really hoping that it will hold up for multiple booths for multiple troops year after year. Only time will tell!
Materials Needed
- 2 sheets green felt
- 1 sheet white felt
- 1 sheet red felt
- 1 sheet blue felt
- 1 sheet orange felt
- 1 sheet yellow felt
- 1 sheet purple felt
- scissors
- pinking shears
- pen (for tracing)
- paper letters or letter stencil
- needle and thread OR sewing machine
- cardstock (a few sheets)
- twine
- yarn
Step 1 - Cut the Flags from Felt
The first thing I did was to trace a little flag onto cardstock so I could use it as a pattern while cutting out all nine of the flags. Then I used that little flag to trace nine flags onto the green felt. I wanted the banner to be symmetrical from end to end.
I used pinking shears to cut the felt out. Felt doesn’t unravel, but I just think it looks cute.
Step 2 - Cut Flag Toppers from Felt
I had originally planned on cutting small holes in the side of each flag and running the twine through them to create the banner. But when I finished cutting out the flags, I really thought it needed more color. So many celebrations and traditions in Girl Scouts involve lots of color. I wanted to stick with the colorful theme.
To add more color, I cut out pieces of multi-colored felt (purple, blue, yellow, orange, and red) to create little tabs on top of each flag to run the twine through. The strips I used were 1 ½” wide and 3 ” long.
Step 3 - Cut Letters from Felt
I am terrible at free handing letters and don’t own a wonderful cutting machine so I used my favorite photo editing software PicMonkey and simply printed out letters in the size I was after. You can use my letters by downloading these Cookie Banner Letters.
Print them out on cardstock and then cut each letter out separately. Then simply lay them on the white felt and trace them with a colored pen. Next, cut them out. Easy peasy!
Step 4 - Sew Tabs and Letters to Flags
This step could easily be done by hand, but if you’re lazy like me and use your machine all the time - machine stitching works great too. Fold the tabs in half and stitch them to either side of the flag. I laid out all the pieces ahead of time so I could make sure my colors looked how I wanted them to.
After I sewed the flag toppers on - I went one by one and laid the letters on the flags and stitched right down the center of the letters with white thread (so it wouldn’t show.)
I also decided that we needed something on the flags at the beginning and ending of the banner. So I cut out small red felt hearts. I stitched them onto the flags the same way I did the letters (only with red thread).
Step 5 - Make Pom Poms
Once I had the flags all ready to rock, I strung them onto the twine for a looksy and realized that they were simply crowding each other. I’ve been really into pom poms lately so I thought it would be super cute to make some pom poms to create separators for in between the letters. Here’s a quick step-by-step that show you how to make the pom poms yourself with leftover yarn you have laying around. They’re incredibly easy and they turn out really cute.
Grab some yarn and wrap the tail between your thumb and forefinger.
Continue wrapping the yarn around your three fingers.
Keep wrapping until you have about 30 rounds. If it doesn’t look like enough - just add a few more rounds.
Carefully slide the yarn off your of fingers. Take a small piece of yarn and lay it underneath the loops. Keep it in the center of the loops.
Now pull that yarn piece tight (as tight as you can) and tie it into a knot.
Take your scissors and carefully cut all of the loops of yarn on either side of the yarn you just tied in the center of the bundle.
Here’s your untrimmed pom pom.
Take your scissors and give that pom a haircut. Trim until you have the desired shape.
Repeat this step eight more times.
Step 6 - Assemble
Last step is to put all of the parts together. Alternate stringing letters and pom poms onto your twine. We use a little packing tape to attach it to the table each time we booth. Simple and cute huh?