Giant Banners

Our church is preparing to participate in the annual Albuquerque Twinkle Light Parade this Saturday night. It's our first time participating, which means everything had to be made from scratch. J and I put together a stable for our float on Monday morning. It is made of 2x4 boards and wood screws and only cost about $20 to put together the whole thing.

M and L in the stable.
L modeling the strength of the manger.

I have to say. I kind of took the lead on this project from the church's perspective as idea girl and whatnot, but J came up with the plans and execution for the stable. It is so fun to be able to work on projects like this together, and we love getting messy with sawdust and figuring things out together in the garage when we do projects. We make a great team, and I'm so glad he's on mine.

The other part of the float "base" is the signs that go along the side of the trailer. Our float is titled "Oh, Come Let Us Adore Him" and we'll have a nativity scene (pastor's kids!) on the float itself. So, I wanted to make big long signs to go along each side of the trailer with our float title and church name on them.

Getting them printed, of course, was off the table. We're a tiny church with a tiny budget, so I had to make them by hand. The point of this blog post is to explain how I did it!

First, we made a trip to Joann Fabric and Crafts for the base materials. I bought 6 yards of 32" wide muslin for the sign itself, and 4 yards (WAAAY too much, I have about 3 yards left over) of dark purple felt to make the letters, and another 1/2 yard of yellow felt to make some stars.

When we got home, I cut my muslin in half the long way, so I had 2 strips that were each 16" wide and 18 feet long. They took up my whole hallway. Then, I used my word processing program to find a font I liked (big and blocky so it's easy to read and to cut out the letters). I printed each letter on a single page at 650 pt font, so they were about 9 inches high. Then, I painstakingly pinned them to the felt. It was still folded in half like it was on the bolt, so that I was always cutting 2 copies of each letter... for two signs.

My little workhorse.

After that, the work was easy, but harder to describe, so I took photos.

I sewed both sides of the long strips of fabric (75 feet of straight sewing) so it would have a border that was 2 layers of fabric thick. I use a White sewing machine with all steel interior, so it can sew forever and a day. I don't see anything like it online (you can see it pictured to the right), and some further research reveals that the last White brand machines were manufactured in 2006. Looks like now I have something rare. My mom bought t for me years ago, and it's basic, but wonderful! With that done, I had to figure out how to get the letters on there.

Freehand letters

I laid them out freehand first, just to see how they fit and how much space I'd have on either end for extra decor. It fit fine, but my Type-A personality was screaming "unacceptable" in my head, so I had to adjust things.

Starting at the end, I chose a spacing for the distance between the bottom of each letter and the bottom of the sign. Then, I cut a piece of paper to that length so it would be consistent, and I could be lazy and not measure each time.

Spacing papers, between letters,
words, and the bottom of the fabric.

I did the same for spacing in between letters and in between words. I used those papers, as you can see in the photo to the right, on every single letter and pinned them into place, so they would be spaced appropriately.

I then created a star of Bethlehem for the end of the sign and laid it out as well.

Then, I blistered my fingers hot gluing all those pieces to the sign! Each piece of the star and each letter got stuck on using only hot glue. If it holds and it's a hit, I might go back later and stitch them on as well, just to give it more longevity, but I just didn't have the time or patience for that today.

Logo on the close end of the sign.

Finally, I realized that this was all well and good, but there was nothing on the float to say WHO we are! So, I went back to the computer and pulled up the church logo. I printed it as big as I could as well and cut the pieces out of red felt (which I had laying in my closet). The text was going to be too small for me to patiently cut out each and every letter, so I printed it on two sheets of paper, taped them together, and put them behind the muslin to trace. As you can see, to the left, the muslin is easily thin enough to see through, so it wasn't difficult to use a Sharpie and pick up all the details of the text. It looks sharp and clean.

In order to mount the sign to the trailer, I put grommets on the top and bottom for zip ties or rope to be passed through. I had never used a grommet tool before (that one is 1/4" but mine were 5/8" industrial size), but now I want to find more projects to use mine again! Even M and L had fun helping me get the grommets into the holes and squeeze the pliers shut.

I hope to update again on Sunday with pictures of the fully constructed, lit up, gorgeous float. It's been so fun to work on it, and it felt like my baby was being taken off to school when another member of our church came to pick it up today. Sent off into the world!