Vertical Christmas Banner

Remember the good old days of Domestic Imperfection where I would do a mediocre craft project and post about it, crappy pictures and all? I miss that. So today we’re going to get nostalgic and show you a super quick, super easy Christmas project, posted way too late in the season, using dark shadowy phone pictures. Get excited! 

So here is what we are making today – 

This banner was actually 100% my husband’s idea. I told him I wanted to really decorate the bedroom for Christmas this year, and I needed something to hang above the bed. He said since our bedroom wall looks like a castle, we should do one of those vertical medieval-type banners. I tried to find an example photo online, but everything is copyrighted and I don’t want to get sued, so… 

Here is what you will need (or at least what I used, you could go a million different directions with this).

VERTICAL CHRISTMAS BANNER SUPPLIES

• 2.5 yards dark red fabric ($8)
• tension rod ($3)
• hemming tape ($5)
• iron
• decal ($14)

I’ve been putting off making this for a long time, because I was dreading breaking out my sewing machine. A few days ago I finally decided to bite the bullet, so I hauled my butt up to the attic to grab it. While up there I found a roll of Stitch Witchery hemming tape that I bought forever ago and never used. I got excited, left the sewing machine upstairs, and busted out the iron. No sewing!

If you’ve never heard of hemming tape and don’t own a sewing machine/hate sewing, you are going to love this stuff. I had never used mine because it felt like a cheesy shortcut to doing it correctly, but for a simple Christmas project I figured what the heck.

Good news. This stuff is awesome. It’s super cheap, easy to use, and doesn’t look cheesy. I would totally make curtains with it.

You simply place the tape on the fabric, fold it over however you want, and iron.

You do have to use a damp cloth under the iron. I tried to skip this step, but it works way better if the fabric/tape is (I’m going to do it, don’t hate me, haha) moist.

I wanted the bottom of the banner to be pointed, so I folded it over origami style and threw some hemming tape in there.

Also, I held the iron in one place for way too long and shrunk it in an area, but it’s okay because my point was crooked before I ever burned it. The good news is that so far I have like seven minutes invested in the project.

The last step (and it turns out, the most difficult) was to stick my vinyl Christmas sticker on the fabric to complete the look. This sticker was not meant for fabric, and peeling of the clear plastic while not destroying the design may have caused a few obscenities.

It all worked out in the end though, and it looks like I spent more time and money on it than I did.

So that’s that! Pretty simple, right? Mine is certainly not perfect, but I love it anyway. The bedroom already had the rest of the Christmas decor in it (I’ll show you next week), but this final touch made had a huge impact and really made it feel complete!

See the full Christmas bedroom tour here!