USA Banner!!!

Good Morning!

Well, the banner is one day late but, hopefully, worth the wait!

My parents came over on Sunday, my Dad was helping Alan with the restoration of his Jeep and my Mom needed me to put extenders in her scrapbook.  So, since all of the boys were happily tinkering in the garage, my Mom and I sneaked off to Collective Journey, our local scrapbook store!

I had been wanting to make a 4th of July banner to hang from our mantle, so I grabbed some patriotic paper from WeRMemories while we were there, enough for my Mom and I to each make a 5 pennant banner!  Here's mine, I'm hoping to get a photo of her's later this week!

I used solid blue, red and white cardstock along with lots of ribbons, Viva Pearl Pens, chipboard letters, gold wired tinsel, fussy cut cards from WeR's paper, Glossy Accents, glitter tulle and punches

I made my pennants 4x6" and scallop punched the bottoms of them.  I used a large punch for my scallop circle and glued glittery gold tulle to the back.  the Airplane and Freedom pieces are fussy cut from the patterned paper and popped up.  I made my little firecracker by rolling a piece of scrap paper into a tube and gluing the end down.  I then cut a little piece of wired tinsel and glued to the inside of my paper tube.  I cut off the excess so that it would look like a fun little sparkler!  The red dots around the circle are made my by red Viva Pearl Pen.  The white dots above the stripe paper are made from my white Viva Pearl Pen.  The gingham ribbon at the bottom of the banner pennat comes already ruffled so it's easy to just glue on!  I added Glossy Accents on the airplane, over the word FREEDOM and on the points of the firecracker!

Now, I struggled challenged myself with the letters!  I planned on using a QuicKutz font, but they just weren't the right size.  I really wanted the letters to be backed with chipboard, so I opted out of using my Silhouette Cameo since it doesn't cut chipboard and I didn't want to try to cut the letter by hand.  I ended up going to my stash and finding a pack of old chipboard letters that I liked.  They were plain, so I knew I'd have to find a way to cover them.  I didn't have any gold glitter (What?  I know), but I had gold stickles so I tried painting it on, but it wasn't thick enough and it just looked blah and messy.  I was staring at my supplies that were all over my crafting area and I kept looking at the wired gold tinsel.  I grabbed it and started wrapping it around the chipboard letters... I really like the look, but it's bushy and it kinda makes it hard to see the letters... but I went with it.  If I find or think of something better, then I might switch it out, we'll see!

I did my other end card similar to the first one I shared.  I used fussy cut little cards, added my firecracker and lots of glossy accents.  I used my red Viva Pearl Pen for the red fireworks on the little card and it really added just the right amount of umph!

I put all the cards of my banner together with Binder Clips and tied ribbon onto the clips.  Viola!  A Red, White and Blue banner perfect for the 4th of July!  I have some small wooden plaques that I picked up from the Target $1 aisle that I'll put on the mantle with the banner hanging below!

I hope you enjoyed this banner and maybe you'll be inspired to make one for your home too!
See you tomorrow!
Andrea