Save the Date Banner

Yesterday Tony and I went to have our engagement photos taken. Normally I wouldn't feel like spending money on them, but 1) I wanted to see how this photographer's work looks because he usually works in still life, 2) I want Tony and I to be comfortable with him shooting us since he might be covering our wedding, and 3) I decided to use one of the photos as our Save the Date.

So I decided to make a banner with our wedding date on it, that way the front of the Save the Date is a photo of us with the date needing to be saved. And because I finally charged my camera and got a new laptop, I decided that a tutorial was in order.

First order of business was to decide the font for the numbers and print them out on regular computer paper. I also chose thick cream-colored cardstock for the flags, since the banner I decided to make were pennants strung on a ribbon, and a light green 5/8" ribbon.

I considered a few different ways to make this. I could trace the numbers onto a darker cardstock and then mount them to the pennants, or print them out directly onto the light cardstock. I decided to trace them out and paint them in. It was going to be meticulous no matter how I did it, but this way gave me more control over the final product. This meant cutting out the numbers, which was slow-going.

After I cut out the numbers, I cut the sheets of cardstock into the triangular shape. I had to play around a little bit with the actual shape so that the size and shape of the numbers looked right. I then positioned the number and traced it out. I would highly recommend securing the number down, I just held it and tried to keep it lined up. It worked fine and turned out right, but it was a huge pain.

Choosing a paint color was a weird process. I tried to decide what matched with the rest of the wedding stuff (the invites specifically), then I looked at colors that would look nice outside since we were going to take pictures at Golden Gate Park. I eventually realized I was over-thinking it and just picked a color that I had enough of.

Once I finished painting them (and redoing a couple that I messed up) and letting them dry, I glued them to the ribbon and voila! I don't have photos of the finished product (after hours of tracing and painting, I was DONE), so you will just have to wait until we get the engagement photos back, sorry!