Hosting an eco friendly event – part 2 – DIY banana leaf backdrop

Hello! In part 1 of hosting an eco friendly event, I talked about reducing waste in terms of single use plastic cutlery and disposable plates & cups. In this part, let’s talk about going green on party decorations. For the event I hosted in my home, we did a backdrop with banana leaves & betel leaves. This was well suited for our event as it was a traditional Indian baby shower.

The inspiration for this backdrop came from a picture I saw on a wedding photographer’s Instagram page. At that time, this stuck to me as such an elegant idea and was waiting for an opportunity to use it. And as soon as I got the opportunity to host my friend’s baby shower at my place, I surely wanted to give this a try. So without further ado, let’s go into how to make them.

The backdrop we made was about 6 feet tall & 5.5 ft wide. Things used for this:

• 5 project display boards or any cardboard boards
• fresh banana leaves. I got about about 15 long half blades.
• fresh betel leaves for the sides. Used about 30 leaves.
• cello tapes
• push pins

1. Define the area where you want to set the backdrop. I chose a relatively empty wall where there is plenty of natural light. The area we had was enough to accommodate 2-3 people (when taking pictures) but there was a larger group, the backdrop area wasn’t enough. I would recommend going more wider.
2. Pin the boards to the wall. This creates a strong base to stick the leaves on and it is also easy to stick to stick in more push pins (for the flowers ) on the board instead of puncturing the wall multiple times.
3. Next comes the leaves. My store did not have full leaves, but they had long half blades. Ask your store for leaves that aren’t folded. The ones that they have on the shelves are generally cut & folded. When I asked for long unfolded ones, they got once that were not packaged and they were perfect.
4. The leaves have to be fresh, can not emphasize this enough. My event was on Sunday morning. I got a batch of leaves on Friday evening & another set on Saturday evening and as I couldn’t keep them in the fridge, few of them had turned yellow & few of them had begun to warp around the edges.
5. Start from the bottom and layer the leaves. I used cello tape to stick them to the back. As they are layered, the cello tapes were hidden.
6. Try mixing in different shades of green and different sizes for more pattern & interest.
7. Repeat till you have covered the entire area.
8. For the border, the original plan was to use marigold strings, but we went with betel leaves instead in the last moment. It was green on green but it looked exotic!
9. The betel leaves were stuck individually in upright position on the sides and upside down on the top.
10. Mini roses were pinned randomly for some color. We used thin pins that are used for hairstyling (my mom had them, no idea why!) Else you can use push pins with small heads.
11. And that’s it! You have a beautiful backdrop that is very eco friendly but not compromising on beauty!

MORE TIPS:

1. It is a 2 person job.
2. I would recommend doing this as close to the event as possible. I got a batch of leaves on Friday evening (kept it wrapped in wet cloth), another batch on Saturday evening . We finished the backdrop late Saturday night for the Sunday morning event. It was all fresh & nice when we finished it. But on Sunday morning, the leaves from Friday’s batch yellowed a bit & frayed. I had to do emergency fixes last minute. This left few tapes visible 🙁
3. Reserve few extra leaves for last minute fixes.

The same backdrop can be done entirely with betel leaves or mantharai leaf or lotus leaves too. They wont yellow or brown easily. You can pin each leaf with a flower on top with a small pin or just by itself with a little bit of overlap.

I hope I covered all the points and you would all explore more greener ways for your next event’s decor! Honestly this was such a block buster hit with the guests and is guaranteed to bring in a lot of wow’s! It was worth all the effort put in to it. PS – I did not have enough time to take good pictures. Sorry about the dark or blurry pics.