Birthday banners are a great way to make someone feel special on their birthday. They can be used at parties or just hung up at home to show a loved one how much you care on their birthday. If you do not want to go to the expense of paying an online printing company to print a birthday banner, you can easily create and print one yourself. One great way to decorate for a banner is with clip art, but you do not have to be limited by the standard clip art images that came with your Microsoft Word program.

Do a Google Search
If you want something different than the clip art already installed on your computer, you can do a search at Google.com. Just type in “birthday banner clip art” as your search phrase and browse through the many links that pop up. Or you can get more specific than that if you want. Just put in “birthday girl banner clip art,” or “sweet 16 birthday banner clip  art,” or “40th birthday banner clip art.” The more specific your search term, the more likely you are to find exactly what you need.

Make Sure of Compatibility with Your Computer
Be sure that the clip art that you download is compatible with your computer. Some clip art is compatible with both Macs and PCs, but a lot of it is only compatible with one or the other. And some clip art may only be available for later versions of Windows or Mac OS X, so double check these requirements before trying to download something that will not work.

Double Check the Clip Art Quality
Figure out the size of the banner you will use before selecting clip art. Clip art that is a JPEG or GIF file can be blown up 350% and still look good when printed. If you try to go bigger than that, the clip art will look grainy. If you were to send your birthday banner design to an online printing company, they would need clip art that had 300dpi (dots per inch) at the size you need.
 
If you use clip art that is an EPS or WMF, file then you do not have to worry about getting a grainy image even if you are sending it to an online printing company. Both of these file types are vector art which looks just as good large as it does small, no matter how much you blow it up.

Search a Few Clip Art Links
Here are some birthday clip art that would look good on a banner. Just find the clip art you like, download it if necessary, print it on your home printer, cut out the clip art, and tape it to a long strip of paper for the banner. Or use Microsoft Word’s templates to create a banner and insert the clip art in your design.

• Birthday clip art along with more for several holidays: Word Art Banners.
• This site has birthday collage and birthday boy clip art: Birthday Collage.
• Lots of celebration symbols including birthday clip art: Clip Art Guide for Banners.
• Wizard of Oz birthday banner and a dinosaur birthday banner: Happy Birthday Banners.