Make a Colorful DIY Autumn Welcome Banner to Add to Your Fall Outdoor Decor

This tutorial will show you how to create an Autumn greeting DIY fabric banner to decorate your porch or yard this fall season.

You'll use colorful supplies to make a variety of fall leaves and attach them to a piece of fabric. You can include a fall message to express your feelings this time of year.

Seasonal banners seem to be quite popular in some neighborhoods, especially during the fall it seems. How satisfying would it be to create your own and inspire your neighbors this year?

As good as the outcome will be, making it couldn't be more fun. It's created with a use-what-you-have methodology. So, grab what coloring mediums you have, along with some cotton fabric, and you'll be "grateful" that you did 😜.

The reason this project was so fun was that I used a selection of art mediums and just experimented with using them together.

Here's a list of what I used, plus other supplies you could use as well:

Use a disappearing sewing marker to make a leaf shape on ironed white cotton fabric.

I made my leaves between 3 - 6 inches long.

Fill in the leaf shape with paints or inks.

I started filling mine in with alcohol inks. I let it bleed over the line of the shape since they'll be cut out.

Throughout the whole painting process, I never let it dry between using different supplies. I think it turned out better because of this.

Use more than one color to fill in the leaf:

Use other supplies to add more color and interest to your leaves.

Here I used Jacquard Dyna Flo paints:

Here's a leaf that I used calligraphy inks with:

I also had some fabric pastels so I used them to make lines on the leaf, giving it more texture; I thought:

It's not pictured, but I also added highlights with metallic craft paint.

Using puffy paint or another supply, that's easy to distinguish, outline your leaf (try getting as close to the original as possible).

Plus, leave some painted areas outside of the lines. It will look better when you cut them out.

You can also add a line down the middle and lines on each side of it like most leaves have.

Cut out the leaf but leave around a cm between the cut and the puffy paint.

I think it looks better like this.

Now make several more in different colors and shapes.

I just googled "leaf vector" to get ideas.

I also made some smaller acorns to fill in any missing holes in my design:

Lay out the leaves on another large rectangular piece of white cotton to piece out the design you want.

You'll want to plan this out and take a picture before you start gluing.

In the photo below, I also planned the written greeting for my banner.

Paint or write your greeting using stencils or free hand.

I used a combination of craft paint and puffy paint.

Glue the leaves around the greeting on the banner as you had planned.

To give your banner some weight and a more finished look, glue it onto a piece of burlap so it frames the white fabric.

From here, you can fold the top of the burlap under and attach it to leave room for a pole in case you have a banner flagpole.

Or you can do what I did and attach a ribbon to the top to hang it.