Inexpensive, Big Impact Party Decor: DIY Crepe Paper Banners

Supplies needed: painters or art tape in your choice of color, crepe paper in the color(s) you want, reasonably sharp scissors, metal measuring tape and (optional) decorative ribbon or fun cut out for each corner.

This is an easy way to bring that extra needed flair to your party. I also love how convenient it is to change the design to suit your needs for any event.

~Elizabeth Curtiss, Happy Mom Life Lab Founder

• For an elegant tree presentation, you do not need to make every single bow/box super fancy; I personally prefer a bit of variance and originality between boxes and often favor mostly simple, elegant bows with a few of the puffy, elaborate bows thrown in for impact.

• If you have a helper, take your roll of painters tape and have your helper stand at one side of the middle mark and hold the end of the tape being sure that there is around 6-8″ of extra tape beyond the desired width. Then while standing up, slowly (do not create a big flow of air!) roll out the tape until you are on the opposite side of the midline.

• For outdoor banner reinforcement, you really need a helper and a clear space big enough to lay out another width of the banner.
  1. Measure out another long piece of tape (that’s the same size as your middle width piece + the tails) sticky side up and at each end fold a bit of the tail under so it will stick the tape piece to the floor.
  2. Each person carefully peels up the end tail of tape of the assembled banner and stands up holding tightly to it.
  3. You’ll both need to bend down so that there’s not a lot of space between the floor and the banner, move slowly and carefully walking over the sticky side up tape. Once you’re in place, kneel down and adhere the bottom side of your assembled banner to the sticky side up tape on the floor. So your middle line has tape on the top and bottom at this point.

• When buying your crepe paper: take use total length of the crepe paper section and divide it by the number of colors you want to use. Ex: 5′ banner divided by 5 colors = each color section should be 1 foot long.

• approximate how many crepe paper strips it will take to cover each color’s section. Ex. 1′ sections require around 8 strips of crepe paper.

• multiply the needed number of strips of crepe paper x 1.75 and this is how many strips of crepe paper you should cut for each color. Ex. 1′ long section needs 14 strips of each individual color.

• Important: to estimate how much crepe paper you need, complete this step before buying! Refer to your measurement of ideal length and multiply that number by 2. Ex. let’s say you want the banner to be 3′ long; 3 x 2 = 6′ long pieces for crepe paper. Calculate how much crepe paper is needed by length of strips in inches x how many strips you need of each color. Ex. 6 x 12 = 72 inch long strips. 72 x 14 = 1008″ ; then divide 1008 by 12 to give you total length of crepe paper per color. So with the example, you’d need 84 feet of crepe paper. Most crepe paper is sold in 92′ or 82′ rolls so err on the side of generosity and get a spare roll.

Feature photo by Marla Smith, ©Happy Mom Life Lab. All article images licensed through Elizabeth Curtiss, all in the context of this article are ©Happy Mom Life Lab.

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