How to DIY a "Years We Met" Flag Poster

So, I've told you all about Martha's Flag Conversation Starter and how I had to have it. Well, team, here is how this Giraffe makes her dream come true.

Just to remind you all, to recap my last post, the whole point of this poster is that guests will write their name on a flag and stick it into the year where the met you.

What you need:

• Foam core, based on size of your poster. I bought my foam board from Hobby Lobby, because it was 50% off, and they sell it in sizes much bigger than Miachels (Michaels only did as big as 30" and I needed 32". Michaels' board is also more expensive.)
• Years Poster. More on this below.
• Straight Pins. I bought mine from JoAnn's
• Styrofoam Rectangle. (JoAnn's)
• Half Yard of Fabric. (JoAnn's)
• Card Stock (all ready owned)
• Spray Adhesive (All ready own about 18 cans of it. For this project I used the Tacky brand, just because it was closest to me at the time.)

First, you need your year poster. Martha has one to download from her website. IT's the same one the photo below.

There's a couple of reasons that I didn't use Martha's poster. For one, she says just work with your printer to cut off the years you don't need . .. I think her poster starts with the '60s or something and Mr. G and I weren't born until the late '80s so I simply decided to make my own.

Quick Tip #1: Martha recommends having a copy shop print & mount this for you, but I think that this is sooo easy so everyone should just DIY it. Also, getting things mounted on foamcore can be pretty pricy so this is the way to go.

The bigger the poster, the more money it costs to get printed. Keep in mind, also, that if you want to use an unconventional size, it'll cost more. I wanted a semi-unconventional size so I had to dig for a company that would do that and do it cheaply since we're over budget a liiiittttle bit. I used a kgb deal, and got $30 to posterXXXL.com for only $10. I ended up spending a total of $11.98 on my 18"x32" poster. Perfect. Of course, I picked the size after I had designed the poster, so then I had to re-design it for a new size. Do do that ;-).

Step 1. To start, I glued two pieces of foam core together. I did this because my foam was only .25" thick, and I was worried people would stick pin all the way through it. You can order .5" foam core off the internet, but I didn't want to wait and shipping would have been more money since it's oversized. It was cheaper this way.

I laid my board down on my garage and covered it and spray adhesive. You can kind of see the spray adhesive in the photo - it's the shiny part. The I just laid the second piece on top of it.

After that, I sprayed on more spray adhesive. I wasn't careful, because I knew my board was much bigger than my poster, so I just made sure to get a bunch of adhesive on the board. Then I simply laid & smoothed out my poster on top of that.

Then I used my metal ruler, X-Acto knife, and cutting mat and cut it out. Easy Peasy.

If you look in the photo, you can kind of see the double layers of foam board.

I then let it sit against the couch for a day while I did something else.

Onto part two! Here's where the res of your supplies come into play. First, I gathered my pins & Styrofoam. Yes, I paid more money to get green and blue dress pins. Whatever, it was worth it :-D.

I also realized that I could leave the plastic on the Styrofoam, making less of a mess.

I used spray adhesive to cover the Styro-Rectangle with glue. . . And then I had Mama Giraffe wrap it up like a present with the pretty shiny fabric I bought because that step was too difficult for me.

Thanks, Mom! No, I won't shop my blog friends this photo of you in your PJs.

The bottom does not look good. At. All. But no one will see it, so I'm over that.

After that I used a scissors and paper cutter to cut of cardstock (with at least one blank side) that I all ready owned. I didn't measure it or anything. I also put it in piles of ten to keep organized.

Then, I simply stuck a pin through it and stuck the pin into the Styro-Rectangle.

And there you have it!! I told you it was easy!

Want to see the final project, one last time? Wellll, okay!

Sorry about the giant flash spot!

And there it is - if you look at the to of the photo, you can see that it almost come to Mr. G's waist. I like the size of it. Well, actually, I love everything about it. This is on project that I am super happy with (unlike that dumb card box). I just love it!

Now, if only I had a sign that told guests what to do with it. Oh wait, maybe I do. . . ;-)