No-Sew Burlap Fall Banner

In typical Canadian fashion, the calendar and the thermometer are at odds with each other.  Although it’s September the temperatures are mid-thirty degrees Celsius with about one hundred percent humidity.  Bring on the air-conditioning.

Still, as we walk outside there are leaves crunching beneath our feet and the evenings are getting dark sooner and sooner.  So I concede to taking down my pretty summer decorations.  At least inside the house.  For now.

If you’re like me, then the changing up of decor happens in bits and pieces.  While dinner is in the oven and you’re shouting homework help into another room.  Or way too late at night when the house is already quiet but inspiration has struck.  Here then is a tutorial for a super-quick, easy-peasy, on-the-cheap banner that I made to fill an empty space on the mantel.  Now that my pretty floral wreath is packed away.

Instructions and supplies needed…

Number 1, burlap.  The actual garden variety burlap that was wrapping up your cedar shrubs last winter.  Unless you have prettier burlap from the craft store, that’s fine too.  But if you can’t be rustic in the fall then you never can be, so go for it.  Number 2, scissors.  Cut your burlap into flag shapes, either triangle or square, using the Finished edge of the burlap as the top of your shape.  Numbers 3 & 4, craft paint and a paintbrush.  I used Burnt Umber and a foam brush.  Paint one letter onto each flag shape.    Number 5, dollar store twine.  Cut a length long enough to span the top of each flag, plus extra at each end for hanging. 

To assemble, weave the twine through the top/finished edge of each flag.  Use a large needle if it’s helpful.  Use the extra length of twine at each end to hang.  The finished banner is light enough to be supported with masking or painter’s tape.  Or tie it up with pretty bows if the ends are not hidden.

That will do nicely for this season I think.

And since some books and other wordiness have found their way onto the mantel as well, I leave you with a book-ish quote to ponder for the season.

Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.  Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose.

…personally, Andrea

linked to a stroll thru life and confessions of a plate addict