I’ve always loved the preppy look of vintage sports pennants, but there aren’t many teams that I care about enough to display branded paraphernalia in my house (major exception: the San Antonio Spurs). So after spotting this adorable pennant at Domaine, I decided this would be a super easy and fun DIY to tackle.
Tracing and cutting out the letters can be a bit time consuming, but the materials cost next to nothing and produce a charming finished product. Aside for bar cart decoration, these little (or big) beauts would be a great addition to engagement parties, birthday brunches and pretty much any celebratory gathering!
For this project, you’ll need the following:
• felt
• good scissors
• tracing paper
• Sharpie
• fabric glue
1. First, create a template for your pennant. The standard collegiate pennant dimensions are 12″ x 30″, so I used a range of proportional sizes. I made one large 12″ x 30″ pennant template, one 9″ x 22.5″ and one 6″ x 15″ template.
2. Trace your templates on large pieces of felt. You can find felt by the yard in the fabric section of your local craft store. Cut out pennants with a pair of really sharp scissors.
3. Now it’s time to create the letters. I used a few different free fonts I found online, but my favorites were Lobster and Varsity. Using Photoshop, Illustrator or Word, write out the word(s) you want, and play around with the sizing. Once you’re happy with the way they will fit on the pennant, tape a sheet of tracing paper over your computer monitor and trace the letters.
4. Cut out your letters (I left some connectors between some of the letters so that I could keep the spacing correct) and you’re left with a set of makeshift templates.
5. Using the letter templates you’ve just created, trace your word(s) onto a piece of felt with a Sharpie marker or fabric pen.
6. Cut out letters and arrange them on top of your felt pennants, playing with spacing. Then, glue the letters down with fabric or all-purpose glue.
7. I trimmed a few of my pennants with basic tassels and layered felt on one of my words—you can play around with the ornamentation. Hang above your bar cart (or above your desk for a cheery reminder that happy hour is never far away).
