Frugal Friday

A picture of the finished banner. Sorry it's not a better one.

Happy Friday! A while back I had thought it would be fun to blog about things that we do to save money, and for a few weeks I kept up with "Frugal Friday". And then, like everything else on my blog, it kind of fell to the way side. However, I am working on posting more consistently again (or at least as consistently I can right now...kids are much more important!).
This project is something that I did for Hannah's birthday party back in May, and it was so easy and fun and practically free, that I wanted to share it with you! I know it is a birthday banner, but with the holidays coming you could make one in Christmas colors for a quick and festive decoration. Anyway, on with the directions!

Supplies:
Tissue paper in desired colors (I used tissue paper from my stash that I save up from gifts we have received, but you can usually find tissue paper reasonably at the dollar store, Target or Wal-Mart)
Ribbon of desired length and color (once again, I was able to use ribbon that I had on hand)
scotch tape
staples
scissors
scrap paper

Step 1: Cut a template from a piece of scrap paper...whatever size you desire.
Step 2: Fold your pieces of tissue paper in half to work with the size template you made. Now to be really thrifty and make the best use of the tissue paper tape the open edge closed so you have a nice tube. That way you can get more shapes out of each piece.

Step 3: Lay your template out and start tracing. I don't have any more pictures to show you what I did, but basically I just traced the first like it is in the picture, and then moved it over so the top left corner of the template is touching the top right corner of the traced triangle and trace again. You will end up with triangles pointing down and triangles pointing up. (Wow! I don't know if that made any sense, but hopefully you kind of get the gist of it.)

Step 4: Cut out your shapes!

Step 5: Lay out your shapes in the desired order. I made three separate banners with mine.

Step 6: Cut your ribbon to desired length and then open up the triangles and lay the ribbon in the middle.

Step 7: Fold the triangles back over the ribbon and staple to secure.

Hang up and enjoy your handiwork! A fun, easy project to add some festive flavor to your home for a party or whatever. And it's easy on your wallet too!