Pumpkin Medallion DIY Halloween Banner

Looking for a fun DIY Halloween banner? This pumpkin medallion Banner is a great paper craft to decorate your home for the holiday!

Today I have a fun Halloween project to share with you – a DIY Halloween banner made from paper pumpkin medallions! I love creating paper medallions and thought it would be cute to turn some into little smiling pumpkins. They are easy and inexpensive to make, plus they are incredibly festive! Banners are a great way to decorate for any holiday.

These cute little pumpkins are easy to make and the entire garland only uses a few supplies including paper and ribbon. The paper medallions are created by folding card stock back and forth like an accordion. A scoring board is an amazing tool that makes accordion folding really easy. While you don’t need one to make this project, it will help and it’s a fun tool to have on hand for other projects.

My banner is made with five pumpkins but you can create as many pumpkins as you want for your banner. It is fun to add the cute faces to them using black card stock. They are all strung together on a piece of orange yarn. You can use yarn, string, Baker’s Twine or ribbon to hang your pumpkins.

Supplies Needed for DIY Halloween Pumpkin Medallion Banner

*This post was updated September 2021. Some of the tools pictured are no longer available so I’ve linked to tools I currently use that will work well for this project! :) 

• Orange paper
• Black paper
• Tacky glue, hot glue or strong double-sided tape like 1/2″ Scor-Tape. (Tacky glue is pictured, but I ended up using hot glue for my medallions)
• Paper Trimmer or scissors
• Hole Punch
• Scoring Board and Stylus
• Black and White Bakers Twine, string, yarn, or ribbon to hang your banner

STEP 1: Cut strips of orange paper. You will need two 2″ x 12″ pieces of paper to make one medallion.

STEP 2: Score the paper strips every 1/2″. I used a scoring board and stylus to do this, but you can create these medallions without these tools. Before purchasing a scoring board, I a used a pen (either a dryed out one or a ball point pen with the pen down) and ran that through the groove of my paper cutter. 

STEP 3: Accordion fold the paper strips along the scored lines.

STEP 4: Attach the two strips of orange paper together to make a circle. You can use tacky glue, hot glue or double-sided tape. I started with tacky glue but was too impatient to wait for it to dry so I switched to hot glue. If you use hot glue, you don’t need a lot, just a thin layer. You can also use double-sided tape.

Cut a small square of paper (any color if it won’t be seen, otherwise use a matching orange paper) to use on the back of the medallion. Put a blob of glue on the small square. Push the top of your medallion down towards the center of itself and then place the center of the medallion on the small square of paper. Hold until the glue dries. I find hot glue works best for this as well.

STEP 5: Add faces to your orange medallions. I cut out eyes, noses, and mouths from black card stock and glued them to the medallions. I put the noses on the center of the medallion to hide the center.

STEP 6: Repeat the same steps above for the black medallions, except this time cut two strips of balck paper that measure 2.75″ x 12″. Before accordion pleating my black strips of paper, I used a white colored pencil and drew lines along one side. I did the white lines for 3 of my black medallions.

STEP 7: String the banner.

To string the pumpkin medallion together to make a banner, you will need to poke holes for the yarn. First, poke two holes into the black medallions about an 1.5″. Thread the yarn through all the black medallions and then glue the orange pumpkin medallions on top with hot glue. Keep the hot glue in the center so it doesn’t reach the yarn. This way the medallions can still slide along the yarn.

The Halloween Garland is complete!

I love the pumpkin medallions! They turned out so nicely I decided to create one giant one for a DIY Paper Pumpkin Wreath, pictured on the mantel, that I plan to hang on our door. I have a few more Halloween crafts coming up over the next few weeks, so be sure to stop back again!

Some of the tools in the tutorial are no longer available. Below are links to tools I use that are available on Amazon that will work well for this craft project!