Today, I bring to you another DIY in celebration of the upcoming season: Autumn. I’m not going to bore you to death why it is the best season and why I love it so much – I’ll leave it for another time – and instead jump right into the DIY since that’s what you are here for.

Supplies:

Cork sheet (1 or 2mm thick)
Cardstock
Glue
String
X-acto Knife
Needle and Knitting needle

Step 1. Draw the base shape for the acorn to use it as a template to create as many as you wish. Outline the entire acorn on to the cardstock, cut it out and set it aside for now.

Step 2. On the cork sheet, outline only the cap of the acorn and cut it out. Be aware to have your blade always sharp to get clean cuts. There is nothing more annoying than trying to do a neat job and the piece comes out all crocked and falling apart.

Step 3. Paint the acorn cap with a darker shade of brown to make it more realistic instead of the simple cork colour. Let it dry.

Step 4. Glue the cork caps to the cardstock shapes.

Step 5. Once the glue is dry, use a needle to punch two holes on the top of the acorn. Use a bigger sized needle as you go on to make the hole larger enough to fit the string.

Step 6. Pass the string through the holes and move the acorn along. Set them with the same space between, I place mine 18 cm apart, but you can do as far away or as close as you want.

Step 7. Since I had so much space between each acorn, I decided to add pom-poms to fill up. If you want to also make them, I have a tutorial about a couple ways to make them. Sadly, I didn’t have the yarn in a dirty white colour to suit the aesthetics better. Oh well, sometimes we have to work with what we have laying around the house.

My original idea was to take advantage of the texture of the cork to make the acorn caps, and it worked perfectly. Although my cork sheet was to thick to give a “natural” look that I was looking for, which that doesn’t mean the banner doesn’t work for its purpose. With the pom poms, the story was a little different, I thought of making clay beads instead, but even before I started, I realised it would make the banner quite heavy and hard to hang safely. Bottom line, the final result is not what I ever imagined but is simple and fun to have hung up in my bookshelf, and the pom poms add a bit of cosiness so important for this time of the year.