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I love international sporting events, like I never really pay attention to soccer but I love following the World Cup or the Copa America and Euro Cup type tournaments. Not to the point where I actually watch the games, but I like to follow along with how each country is doing. And the Olympics are the biggest international competition of them all so I always get excited when the Olympics come around, doesn't matter if it is winter or summer. And again, I don't watch all of the events but I love following along with the medal counts and watching some of the events throughout the games, even the ones I know nothing about like curling.
I think the thing I love most about it is that I love seeing all of the people from all over the world representing their different countries. I love seeing each country come in during the opening ceremonies with their countries flag, dressed in their countries colors. It just feel like a coming together of people from all different place, different backgrounds, languages, and cultures, and I think it is so neat.
As a result when I decided I wanted to make a project to celebrate the Olympics I knew I wanted to use flags. I decided on a Flags of the World Banner using paper cut on my Cricut. It came together really easily.
I found the flag designs in Design Space so I just picked a bunch of flags to include from the options available (they didn't have every flag but there were quite a few to choose from). Funny story, I made it for the Olympics that are taking place in Paris and didn't think to include the French flag. I didn't think anything of it until my daughter pointed it out. I chose a whole bunch to start and then kind of weeded them out until I had 18 and I had the French flag but it came down to the French or Italian flag and there wasn't a lot of green so I got rid of the French flag and kept the Italian. I tried to make sure that I included a variety of flags from around the world, although I ended up with a lot from Europe. I chose some randomly, and others were specifically chosen because of significance they have to our family. You could obviously choose any flags you want to include.
I decided that I wanted to use Cricut Smart Paper Sticker Cardstock to make my flags. That made the assembly really easy because it was just peel and stick, no glue or tape to worry about on little pieces. Because I wanted the back to not be adhesive I did cut a plain base for each flag out of white cardstock. Then I just layered each of the flag elements on that base using the sticker cardstock adhesive.
To finish it off I strung the little flags on a piece of twine and I had a fun flags of the world banner to celebrate an international event. And it has been a fun conversation starter for my kids as we have talked about the different flags and the countries they represent.
How to Make a Flags of the World Banner
You will need:
- Cricut Maker
- Cricut Smart Paper Sticker Cardstock in a variety of colors (I used red, blue, yellow, and green from the brights pack, blue from the pastel, black, and white)
- cardstock
- blue mat (light grip)
- twine
Instructions:
I chose several flags from the World Flags Pennants Image Collection. I used a total of 18 flags from different countries, but there are more available in the collection that you can switch out or add to the ones I used.
If you add any flags you will want to adjust the colors so that the similar colors are all synced or you will end up with several shades of red or yellow, etc. I only had so many colors of paper so I cut all of my red out of the same shade of red, all of the royal type blues out of the same shade, and so on.
The other thing you will want to do is my project only includes 1 solid gray flag base and you will need one of those for each of the flags you cut out. So if you make 18 flags like I did you will need 18 base pieces. These will be cut out of regular cardstock, not the sticker cardstock.
Once you have all of your flags chosen and ready to cut you will want to cut all of the pieces of the flags out of Sticker Cardstock (or regular cardstock and you will need to use glue or a tape runner to attach pieces), and the flag bases out of regular cardstock.
Once you have all of your pieces cut out you will just need to layer them together. Start with your regular cardstock base, then layer the first piece (it will be a full flag shape), then follow the order the pieces are in in the layers panel working from the bottom up. For example, the Argentina flag in the pictures above would be layered as follows:
white base of regular cardstock
yellow solid flag piece
White piece with sun cut out in the center
2 light blue stripes
All of the pieces go together pretty easy by lining up the edges and the holes.
When all of the flags are assemble string them on a piece of twine and tie loops on the ends. I started by stringing the flags on the twine while still on the ball and then cut it once they were all strung so I could be sure to have the right length.
Then I just use command hooks on my mantle to hang it up.
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