The Blue Barn: Rainbow Banners with Messages of Love

Sometimes projects just seem to evolve, take on a life of there own and become something else altogether, these are always the best projects. Todays project is one of those. Picture this, snowy day, kids dismissed early from school, no real idea of what they want to do other than annoy each other and me. Me trying to get all the tasks I'd planned for the day done and failing miserably. I set newspaper out all over the table to protect it while they painted but after they finished their paintings the newspaper became a free for all. 'Lets be graffiti artists' and so they were.

But what to do with the end result? Too beautiful to recycle right away, what can we make? And the evolution began. If you want to have a go at making a wall hanging heres a few helpful items.

You will need:

Newspapers

Paints

Hole punch

Yarn

Beads - or make your own like we did from polymer clay

Parcel tag - real or make your own

Step 1

Have your kids go to town on some old Newspaper. Encourage them to fill all the space, change colors and use bold shapes. Once covered leave out to dry.

Step 2

We had painted double sheets so go make the hangings more manageable we tore the paper into single sheet sizes. Then begin to fold back and forth back and forth to create a fan.

Step 2

Take your folded newspaper and punch a hole in the center through all the layers.

Step 3

If you are using beads or something ready made such a bottle caps or pasta shapes then you can skip this step.

We created our own beads from Sculpey clay we had. Each bead was made from one strip. (Each packet has the strips marked into it once you unwrap it.) Taking a strip roll into a ball and using a wooden skewer create a hole through it. Bake in the oven as directed on clay packet.

Step 4

Take a long stand of yarn (about 3ft) fold into half, the loop will become the top of your piece. Take two more strands of yarn each about 12 inches, fold each of them in half too.

Now match up all the loose ends, where the two shorter loops meet with the longer piece of folded yarn tie them on in a knot.

You can now thread on the lower three beads. Use a wooden skewer to push the yarn through if you need to.

Once you have threaded the three base beads on you can thread the folded newspaper onto the yarn. Its easier to do this with it all still folded together. Push it down to the beads.

Now at the top about three inches down from the loop tie a second knot. You may need to double or even triple knot this, you want the knot to be big enough for another bead to sit on top of it.

Once you have tied the knot thread on another bead. Gently fan out the paper.

They can be hung on the wall as they are and they are very beautiful as is, take a look.

We however decided to add in one more detail.

Step 5

For this last detail you could decorate a luggage/parcel tag. We created our own by cutting rectangles from watercolor paper and punching holes in one end. Since we are near Valentines and the world definitely needs more love we pulled out our Valentines stamps for it.

To attach these tags we simply threaded the yarn through the hole of the tag before adding the final bead. This way it sits near the top but you could totally add it nearer the bottom or even add multiple tags with different messages on.