One of my favorite party decor items is definitely a fabric scrap banner. It’s inexpensive to make (since you’re just using leftover fabric and ribbon that you already have), it can be made to match any theme or color scheme, and although it is somewhat time consuming, it’s pretty easy and mindless to assemble once you get going.

All you need is some jute or string and some strips of fabric and/or leftover ribbon. The size of strips of fabric will depend on how large you want your banner to be. For my smaller banners, like the ones I hang from my frame wreath, the strips are probably about 6 inches.

For larger ones I usually cut the strips around 10 inches or so. Here you can see my long one I made for my mantel for our gender reveal party a couple years ago, which I now use at Christmas time.

I was surprised when I did a quick search on Etsy and saw how much people are selling these for! And I suppose they sell the m for what they do because people will buy them, but I’m here to tell you that even the least crafty person in the world can make one of these; and the bonus is that you can’t really mess up!

Now, you might be saying, “But Justine, the point is I’m NOT crafty so I don’t HAVE any scrap fabric just laying around.” 

Not a problem, you still have lots of options! Do you have any friends with excess fabric laying around? I actually know several people who do and are usually more than happy to give you some! Especially since it doesn’t really matter what the fabric looks like, just the overall color of it. 

Which brings me to my next option, buying fabric. I know the whole point is to use what you already have, but if you’re really in a pinch you can go to your local fabric store and score some great discounted remnant or other clearance fabric, so you’re still making a darling decoration for super cheap!

The last option is old clothing. Do you have any worn out clothing or old sheets or blankets you’ve been meaning to get rid of? You can give them some new life as party decor! That may sound weird, but my favorite strips of fabric on my long, white banner come from an old sweater of mine!

So once you’ve got your fabric cut to desirable sizes and you’ve procured some jute or string (purchase your jute form a home improvement store, it’s much cheaper than buying from a craft store!) you’re all set to get crafting!

I like to put the kiddos to bed and sit down in front of some Netflix while I put this together because, like I said, it doesn’t really take a lot of thought. Now, I’m running off the assumption that everyone knows how to tie the fabric, but as I learned in {this} post, I shouldn’t just assume that everyone will know how to do something. 🙂 It’s kind of hard to explain through pictures but I’ll try my best.