Fall Glitter Leaves Banner

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We had so much fun creating this upscale (for us any way) fall craft we found here.  The dark, fallish glitter makes the whole banner look extra swanky.  This is the kind of fall decoration that will class up even the most basic of construction paper Thanksgiving decor.

Here is what we used to put together this craft:

-leaves (we plucked ours off of some clearance fall garland) 

-hot glue gun

-scissors

-glitter (small & large chunks for variety)

-brown ribbon

-adhesive spray

-newspaper

-vegetable oil (for clean-up)

1- Take leaves and spray them with adhesive spray. 

2- Lay leaf on top of newspaper and sprinkle with glitter. Let the glitter settle for a minute, lift up the leaf and tap the glitter off and set aside to dry. Repeat to back side. We did 14 or so leaves per banner. 

3- Once all your leaves are done, cut varying lengths of ribbon (3 to 5 inches) and hot glue to the back of each leaf.

4- cut a long piece of ribbon (we did 5 feet) and begin to tie your leaves to the main ribbon. Take care to have your leaves tied forward so they lay better.

And enjoy!

A couple points of interest: First, for as awesome as this project turned out, it was about as fussy to make as it looks.  Basic assembly for a craft, sure, but glitter and glue are a special combination that can quickly get out of hand.  So when you've finished spraying and sprinkling, pour a hand full of vegetable oil on those sticky digits and that glue and glitter will glide right off. 

This picture doesn't even do justice to how glitter-gooey we got!

Second, our first attempt to attach the ribbon to the leaves had us punching holes in the leaves using a combination of safety pins and pencils.  Yeah...., not only was that time consuming, but the end result wasn't as polished as we wanted.  So, out came the hot glue, and we learned a vary valuable lesson.  When in doubt, hot glue.

Third, don't despair if at first you don't succeed.  It took us a couple of tries to get the glitter and glue just right.  But it was worth it.  The final result is one of our favorite crafts of all time. So be brave, and glitter on. 

Happy Thanksgiving!