For my daughter’s 1st birthday I decided to jump on the Pennant Flag Cake Topper bandwagon! The beauty of these is that you can combine so many colors into this project…. AND you can spell any word or phrase that you want! I love project ideas that I can re-purpose for any event!… Spell out the age at a birthday celebration – One or 40, spell out the name of the guest of honor, spell out your favorite team on game day – Go Tigers!, spell out a Holiday message – Merry Christmas! The possibilities are endless!
What you need:
- 2 Paper Straws
- String
- Washi Tape or Decorative Tape
- Chalk or Paint Marker
- Awl or small screwdriver
- Scissors
1. Cut a length of string. This string needs to be long enough to fit all of your letters, but also remember to give yourself plenty of slack to tie a knot at the ends.
2. For my pennant flags, I chose to use a Decorative Tape for the pennants. I know many tutorials out there use cardstock or scrapbook paper. These are both great options, but I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of gluing two sides together, and alternately, I didn’t want tape showing on the backside of my banner, because my cake would be seen from all sides. Using Decorative tape allowed me to make simple, clean flags. There are so many colors, patterns, and sizes of Decorative or Washi Tape to choose from these days. For my project, I used a 24mm tape.
Cut a piece of tape for each letter you will need. It doesn’t hurt to err on the longer side when cutting these pieces. Once they are on your string, you will be able to cut them down.
3. Fold each piece of Decorative tape in half over the string to create the flags. Space each piece evenly across the center of your string.
4. Trim the corners off of each flag to create the pennant shape.
5. Using your Paint marker or Chalk marker, write each letter onto the flags. I used a chalk marker for mine. Just make sure to choose a color that contrasts well with your Decorative tape.
6. Create a small hole at the top of each paper straw using your awl or small screwdriver. The hole should only be on one side of the straw… Be careful not to poke the hole all the way through to the other side! I set my hole at least 1/2 inch down from the top. I learned this trick the hard way!… if you make your hole too close to the top edge of the straw, the knot of string will show.
7. Now thread one end of string into the hole you just created on each paper straw, and out the top of the straw.
8. At this point, you’ll want to do a little adjusting to figure out exactly how you want your topper to look. How far apart do you want your paper straws to sit on the cake? How much slack do you want on the string of letters? Once you’ve figured out exactly where the straw needs to be secured to the string, pull the string all the way out of the straw, and make a knot in that spot.
9. I suggest pulling the knot back down into the straw just to ensure you tied your knot evenly on both sides… remember – you can always retie the knot if you need to! Once your knots are in the right place, pull the string back out of the top of the straw, and trim the excess string away from your knot.
10. Pull the knotted ends back down into the straw… Voila – a whimsical cake topper!
Check out this tutorial on How to make this Cake Stand!
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