Saturday, September 12, 2015

Soccer Banner 2015


August 2015 came, and with it a new soccer season. My 6 year old son now is in U8. The team's coach called the initial team meeting at his home on August 11. We were excited to meet the new teammates and families, and see the team colors for the season. The boys (and I) were thrilled to see that the jerseys and socks were bright red. The team wouldn't decide on their team name until their first practice.

At the team meeting, the coach brought up the banner issue. I suggested buying a vinyl banner (following my own advice from last year). However, a couple of families adamantly did not want to pay the amount it would cost for their share for a vinyl banner. I agreed to lead the banner effort if other families understood that it would take time and effort in place of money to make it happen. Lots of nods and agreement.

I confess to trying to influence the team name/theme by making lots of suggestions to my son. Stuff like "Rush," "Flash," "Red," etc. Stuff that could be rendered easily or abstractly for making a banner. My efforts were completely in vain.

The first practice was two days later on August 13. The boys decided then on their team name - Pumas. I groaned. First, cheering for Pumas kind of sounds like cheering for excrement. More importantly for the task at hand, this was going to be a more involved banner to make. The good news was that the first game wasn't until September 12 and picture day September 13. We had a full month, compared with the ten days I had to get it all made last year.

With the experience of one banner, and extra time, this is what I churned out with the help of several team parents:


I'll run through the steps that I took, modifications I made from my approach from last year, and give the budget for this year's banner. When I have nothing new to add to details I wrote up last year, I will reference a specific date from last year's post (2014) if you are curious about the details or methods used.

Banner design


  • Image capture/brainstorm using Pinterest
    I googled terms including "puma," "mountain lion," and "cougar" to search for images. When I saw the claws, it got me thinking that playing with claws actually tearing through the banner might be interesting.
  • Layout using MS Publisher
    This was a very early version of the banner design, but quite close to what we actually made. I was able to copy my file from last year's banner, change the background color, change a few elements, but a lot of the work for figuring out MS Publisher and scaling the font sizes was already done last year. Bonus!
  • Choosing fonts that were available for free download from Dafont.com. Fonts used in this year's banner:
    • Johnny Torch Rotalic for "PUMAS"
    • Massacre for player names
    • Franchise for sponsor, coach names, "AYSO," and team number

Gathering materials


  • Felt, on sale for $2.99/yd, plus a 20% off coupon at Joann Fabrics. Colors used were red for banner background; black for text, name backgrounds, puma background, and patches on soccer ball; white for text, soccer ball, and puma teeth; yellow for puma claws; dark tan and light tan for puma. 8 yds of felt used.
  • Glue, two types used.
    Repositionable Tacky Spray is used to adhere paper to felt for cutting out letters and patterns. You want to use something that will adhere enough for cutting out letters and patterns, but not so tightly that you can't pull the paper off when it's time to glue the pieces to the banner (I had this problem with more adherent glue last year.)
    And Original Tacky Glue is used to adhere felt-to-felt. It took a little over 16 oz to do the entire banner for this year.
  • Beads, plastic bear claws (2.5") for creating the claw assemblies.
    I talked to my sister after I ordered these but before they were delivered. I knew she had experience with this type of bead. She thought that their size might be small relative to the scale of the banner, and that I might need to do something to beef them up.
  • Hardware, replacement PVC el joints and linear couplings to replace broken ones from last year.

    A change from last year: we purchased 3/4" steel stakes to use for holding up the PVC frame. A parent on our team last year brought these to use instead of the 3/8" rebar, and they worked much better. They are only a couple of dollars more, and well worth it (in my opinion.)

Enlisting help

Requires preparation

  • When the bear claw beads arrived, there was a bigger problem then looking anemic. They were very sharp! So sharp that I could imagine them snagging or cutting the banner when folded. More importantly, sharp enough to injure someone if they were walking by and didn't notice them protruding from the banner.

    As a solution, I double-folded a length of yellow felt to cover the bead, so that there would be two layers of felt on each side face of the bead. This required anchoring each felt cover to the bead hole, then stitching along the perimeter of the claw.

    I was going to be headed out of town for a week, and enlisted one of the families with 6 kids (!) to work on the stitching while I was gone. They did a great job and really know what teamwork is about! In order to pass this project off to them, I had to prepare the appropriately-sized felt lengths. Additionally, I wound bobbins so there would be plenty of thread for each set of hands working on claws.
  • All of the letters on the banner were cut by hand, not purchased. The letters were prepared by printing the words in their mirror image (in MS Publisher), adhering to felt using spray glue, and cutting out. Here is a working example of how I generated the words' mirror images. The words adhered to felt are in gray.
    Once the letters/words were adhered to felt, I could pass those out to team families for cutting. I got this done before my trip, and got great participation from other families.
  • For this banner, I also used paper adhered to felt to cut the name and claw backgrounds. The sharp points work better with having a paper foundation; otherwise, polyester felt tends to shred if you pull or fuss too much at the sharp, pointed ends.

Sewing banner seams


  • I sewed the 8ft x 4ft banner identical to last year's, using a double seam and cutting 45 degree angles at the corners. It held up very well last year, so I saw no need to mess with a good thing. For details, see step 4 under August 29th for the 2014 banner.

Making graphics

Center puma and soccer ball


  • I approached generating the images and patterns the same way that I did last year. (See August 31st steps 2-5 for the 2014 banner for detailed description.) 
  • First, I projected the puma image and soccer ball image onto poster-size paper at the sizes I wanted for the banner. I sketched along the lines, filling in the black background for the puma.
  • Then I made a pattern that could be transferred precisely and repeatedly by punching holes along the lines, and rubbing powder through the holes. For all of the non-white felt, I used a 1:1 mix of tapioca starch and baking soda. For the white felt, I mixed in cinnamon for contrast.
  • The puma was constructed of three layers: black, dark tan, and light tan. The soccer ball was constructed of a white layer with black patches. The relevant pieces were cut from each layer, and the powdered dots on the layers below showed where to place top layers.
  • The soccer ball lines were made by using a zig-zag stitch on the sewing machine along the powdered dotted line. The black patches were then placed on top and glued down.

Banner layout


  • The next step was to lay out the banner in preparation for gluing. It's good to make sure everything fits before committing!
  • In order to get a polished look, it's important that all of the edges get glued down. Doing this is no small task. To get to that point is an iterative task, requiring several days. You have to glue, glue, glue - then let it all dry and see what has stuck. Then glue again, sealing down around edges. Rinse and repeat. It really does look good if you stick with it, though.

Claw assembly


  • The claws were the trickiest, most time-consuming part of this banner. It's a cute detail, but not one that I'm sure really stands out from a distance. The boys really love it though, especially standing behind the banner and poking their fingers through the claw wind vents.
  • As a construction detail, the goal was to have claws all linked together, removable, and able to be added as last step after gluing.
  • The idea was to have something waterproof and lightweight to link the claws. My idea was to use a piece of hard lamination, with holes punched for stitching the bead on one side of the laminated card to a button on the other side of the laminated card.









  • I put some felt in between to pad the interface and allow a bit of cinching of the stitching. I cut the holes quite small for each claw, so I had to squeeze them through. Having small holes to squeeze through, plus having the claws anchored in the back with the laminated card, keeps them together and upright. It worked as intended and was an inexpensive solution.

Wind vents


Remember to cut wind vents! In this banner, the wind vents are cut above each claw so that it looks like the banner has been clawed through.
Additionally, there are wind vents cut around the puma, along its lower jaw, back leg, and under the curve of its tail.

Budget

Vendor Item Price Discount Price Pd Tax Shipping Total
Home Depot PVC coupling 4@0.22  $    0.88  $    0.88  $  0.08  $    0.96
PVC el 2@0.41  $    0.82  $    0.82  $  0.08  $    0.90
36" stakes, 2@4.85  $    9.70  $    9.70  $  0.90  $  10.60
Painters tape  $    1.98  $    1.98  $  0.18  $    2.16
Joann Buttons 7@1.00  $    7.00
25%
 $    5.25  $  0.49  $    5.74
Felt (6 5/8 yds)  $  18.89
20%
 $  15.11  $  1.40  $  16.51
Felt (1/4 yard)  $    1.50
30%
 $    1.05  $  0.10  $    1.15
Tacky glue 8oz  $    4.49
30%
 $    3.14  $  0.29  $    3.43
Thread  $    4.18
30%
 $    2.93  $  0.27  $    3.20
Michaels Tacky glue 16oz  $    6.99
40%
 $    4.19  $  0.39  $    4.58
Tacky glue (spray)  $    9.99
40%
 $    5.99  $  0.55  $    6.55
FedEx/Kinkos Copies  $    7.28  $    7.28  $  0.67  $    7.95
Lamination  $    2.49  $    2.49  $  0.23  $    2.72
Online order 40 plastic claws  $  12.40  $  12.40  $        8.00  $  20.40
TOTAL  $  86.84
I was able to re-use the PVC frame from last year's banner, saving a few dollars. Bottom line, we made this banner for a total of $87. Lots of bang for the dollars spent.

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