Unicorn is such a popular theme for birthday parties the last few years. If you are trying to throw a party on a budget, making your party decorations is something you will probably want to do. This tutorial will show you how I made this adorable unicorn banner decoration for a birthday party.
How do you make a great birthday banner?
The key to a great birthday banner is adding layers, texture, and 3D elements. You can add layers to each pennant, the letters, the numbers, and the shapes. Switch up the texture by adding glitter, textured, or metallic cardstock paper. You can also mix things up with the ties that connect your banner with tulle, yarn, lace, or ribbon. 3D elements can take your banner to the next level with paper flowers and other things that add dimension to your banner.
Materials
- 8 Sheets of 8,5 X 11″ Cardstock Paper (1-purple, 1-pink, 1-turquoise, 1-light green, 1-yellow, 1-metallic gold, and 2-white)
- Hole Punch
- Tulle Fabric by Celebrate It Occasions– Pink
- Elmer’s Washable Clear School Glue
How to Make a Unicorn Banner Decoration for a Party
First, open your Cricut Design Space App, click “New Project” and “Images.” Type in “note card” and change the ownership to free. You could easily search for a traditional or pennant or banner shape, but I wanted the banner to have a little more pizzazz. Scroll down until you see the shape that is pictured above. You can choose a different shape if you would like to. Click on “Insert Images” to place it on your Design Space.
Next, rotate the notecard shape 90 degrees so that it is standing up vertically. Click and drag the notecard to change its length to six inches. Go to the layers section on the side of the screen and click on the “eye” to make the second layer visible.
Now, click on the notecard and “Copy” and “Paste” it four more times so that you now have five notecards on the screen.
Change the color of each layer to create a pattern. I used five different colors for my banner: purple, pink, blue, green, and yellow.) The color that I used on the top layer of one notecard was used on the back layer of the next notecard. I continued this pattern until I went through all of the colors.
Designing You Unicorn Banner
Now, we will put our designs and letters on our unicorn banner decoration for a party.
Click on “Images” and type in “Unicorn.” You can choose any shape that you like. The unicorn shape that I chose (pictured above) was $0.99. Click on the unicorn that you want. Then, click “Insert Images.” Move the unicorn on top of the first notecard, and click and drag the height to 4.222 inches tall. Change the color of the unicorn to gold.
Click “Offset” to add a second layer to the unicorn. Change the “Distance” to 0.1 and click “Apply.” Go to the right side of the screen, click on the unicorn’s bottom layer, and change the color to white. Then, “Copy” and “Paste” and move your new unicorn to the top of the fifth note card. Click”Flip” and “Flip Horizontal” to change the unicorn’s direction.
If you like party decorations, check out the DIY crafts I made for an LSU football party.
Now we are going to add text to our banner. I am spelling out the word “One” for a first birthday party, but, of course, you can spell out “Happy Birthday” or spell out the birthday person’s age if you’d like. However, as your words get longer, you are going to need more cardstock paper.
Click on the word “text” and type in the word “One” in all caps. Click “Font” and change the font to “Bernard Condensed.” Change the height to 4.147 inches tall. Go to the top of the screen and click “Offset” to add a second layer. Make sure the distance says 0.1, then click “Apply.”
Go to the side of the screen to highlight the second layer. Then, go to the top of the screen to change the color of the second layer to white. Finally, change the top layer to the same gold color as the unicorn shapes.
Cutting Your Banner with Cricut
Now, we have finished designing our banner. First, click the “Make It” button. Next, click on each page, change the Material Size to 8.5 X 11″ and hit “Continue.” Finally, go to your Cricut Machine and make sure that it is set to cardstock.
Look at your computer screen to make sure that you put the correct color cardstock paper on the mat. Smooth the cardstock paper out and load the mat into the Cricut Machine. Press the Load/ Unload button and the “Go” button and let the Cricut machine do its thing!
Throw away all of the unnecessary paper, then repeat the process for each cardstock paper.
Tip: When all the cutting is complete, organize all of the pieces on your desk into their different groups to make the assembly process easier.
Assembling Your Unicorn Banner
Glue both layers of notecards together, both layers of of letters together, and both layers of unicorns together. Now, glue the letters on top of their notecard and the unicorns on top of theirs.
Use a hole puncher to punch holes in the top corners of each notecard.
Now, you are going to cut six 12-inch pieces of pink tulle. Roll the ends of the tulle up so that it will go through each of the notecards holes. Tie double knots to secure the tulle, but make sure not to tie it too tight so you don’t rip the paper, or the notecards won’t overlap too much where you can’t read them.
Next, cut all of the tulle pieces except for the end pieces to about an inch long. The reason you don’t cut the end pieces is because you use the end pieces to hang the banner.
Don't Be a Stranger...
There you have it! That was such a simple unicorn banner decoration for a birthday party!
If you have any ideas for celebrations crafts of Cricut crafts you’d like me to make, drop me a line in the comments below.
Feel free to continue perusing my site to check out all of the other fabulous crafts I’ve done and articles I’ve written.
I hope that you will continue to add a little more creativity to the world and keep coming back because…
