Birthday Badge and Banner Tutorial

Hey Crafters,

My best fella's quarter century birthday was this week I made him a birthday badge to wear for the evening. The poor guy is starting final exams soon so our festivities were a bit uncertain and truncated. We went out for Indian food (which was great) and to the bar to grab a few drinks and a good time was had by the few other students brave enough to crawl out of the study coma. I had the same problem in undergrad; my birthday was during spring finals. It sucks.


This badge is made of two types of colored paper (blue and orange), a length of crepe streamer, ribbon and rickrack, a bobby pin, and hot glue.

Bobby pin on back

1. I started by making my front and back circle (the 25). Using something round (ex. the bottom of a glass), cut two circles. 
2. Write what you want (or print from the computer) on the front circle before gluing anything to it. I wrote "25" with some side flourishes.
3. Then I glued the streamer to the back circle, folding as I went to get the ruffles. 
4. Glue your ribbons, rickrack, to the "bottom" of your back circle (here I cut a few lengths of my blue paper and accordion folded them to get a few more long pieces). 
5. To make the fringe, cut a length of paper about an inch wide, making slits every centimeter or so (so that it looks a bit like a comb) and glue that to the front circle. 
6. Glue the front circle to the back circle. 
7. Here I put a bobby pin on the back instead of a real pin back so  that I could slip it into the hole on the top of a cone party hat that was already hanging around my apartment OR he could take it out and wear it on a pocket or lapel.

I also made a tiny banner out of the same blue and orange paper.

1. Take a length of string (I used yarn but maybe hemp twine would be better. The yarn keeps twisting unpredictably). 
2. Fold your paper in half and cut a triangle, wide end on the fold. 
3. That long diamond shape folds in half around the string. Glue in place. 
4. Tie bows onto toothpicks or chop sticks and stick in your birthday cake! 

Since we didn't have cake, I stuck this guy in the rice at the Indian restaurant.

BK