Assalamu Alaikum!
We hope everyone's Ramadan is going well! In today's post we will be showing you how we made our Ramadan/Eid banner.
First of all, we wanted to explain why we are making a reusable, reversible banner this year. We make a banner every year out of paper, but did you know that it takes 10 litres of water to make a single A4 sheet?! Also, paper production contributes to water pollution, deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions among other things. You can learn more about it here. Everything we use must first be produced, and that requires energy and resources. Good quality, multipurpose and reusable items are much more environmentally friendly, which is why we decided to make this banner.
Last year's banner was made from a large roll of paper that our dad saved for us from his work(it would have gone to waste otherwise). However, it was not durable and so this year we wanted to make one out of felt. This was a fun project to work on and we hope you like it, insha'Allah!
For this craft you will need:-
Thick black felt
Thin colourful felt (around 5 different colours)
Fabric scissors
Tailor's chalk
Glue
Pen/pencil
Strong ribbon
Needle
Embroidery thread
Measuring tape/ruler
Card (for triangle templates)
Pompoms (optional)
First you will need to print and cut out a large triangle to use as a template. Then use your tailor's chalk to trace out 14 triangles on the thick black felt. When you are done, cut them all out.
First you will need to print and cut out a large triangle to use as a template. Then use your tailor's chalk to trace out 14 triangles on the thick black felt. When you are done, cut them all out.
Then use another template to make smaller triangles out of the coloured felts. Again you will need 14 triangles in total.
We chose to make 4 yellow, 4 pink, 3 beige and 3 white triangles. We then placed them in the centre of the larger black triangles.
For some reason the yellow looks quite orange in these photos?!
Then we placed them in the following order: yellow, pink, beige, white.
Next, we chose the first pair of triangles and the last pair.
We glued the small triangles onto them and then flipped them around and decorated them using some scraps of leftover felt.
Just to clarify, these four triangles have the geometric mosaic pattern on one side and either a yellow or pink triangle on the other.
With the other 10 triangles we traced the letters for EID MUBARAK onto the black felt.
We made sure that the letters were small enough to be completely covered by the coloured triangles.
Then we cut them out carefully and glued the coloured felt in place over them.
Remember to glue them onto the right side! Hopefully the photos explain better. This is the letter D and how it should be glued so it does not end up being mirrored - if you know what we mean.
Once you are done you can then cut out the letters for RAMADAN MUBARAK from a different coloured felt. We used purple as it complimented all the other colours well.
When done, set aside for later and lay the banner out as shown below.
Then take your ribbon and sew it into place.
Leave about an inch of ribbon between each triangle.
When we were done sewing we laid our banner out on the floor.
Then we flipped the whole banner around and glued down the purple letters for the RAMADAN MUBARAK sign.
Now all you have to do is hang the banner up. Masha'Allah, this is the end result!
The RAMADAN MUBARAK side...
...and the EID MUBARAK side.
We decided to hang some pompoms to make the Eid side more fancy. We had some pompom garland-like wool that we loosely draped over the banner.
To clean the banner you can hoover it gently and keep it packed away to prevent it from getting very dusty.
Insha'Allah, we will hopefully be able to reuse this banner for many more Ramadans and Eids to come!
We hope you liked this post and we will see you next Friday, insha'Allah.
Wassalam,
