A little over a year ago I created my very first banner for a design team that I was a part of. It was quite the challenge for me, but I loved how it turned out. The sad part was that I had to send it off in the mail never to see it again. I made a promise to myself then that I would make a banner for myself to display in my apartment. I knew right where I would hang it too.
When the original Lost & Found collection came out I was in heaven! I started to collect the Union Square line knowing that it would work perfectly for my banner. My kitchen & dining area is made up of the color palette red, black & white. I gathered all the products I wanted to use and set them aside knowing that I would start to work on my banner soon. Well months have gone by and finally my banner is complete! It feels so good to have it done and hanging up for me to enjoy.
Supplies:
- Union Square “Favorite” Birds of a Feather Glittered Paper
- Union Square “Perfect” Damask Print Paper
- Union Square “Beautiful Day” Journey Glittered Paper
- Union Square “Home Sweet Home” Love Glittered Paper
- Union Square “Home Sweet Home” Collage Paper
- Union Square “Moments” Charming Glittered Paper (die-cut)
- Union Square “Moments” Seamstress Glittered Paper
- Black Cardstock
- Color Box Black Chalk Ink
- Making Memories Black Glitter Chipboard Alpha
- Queen & Co. Pearls
- Chipboard Pennants (7)
- Friskers Apron Lace Border Punch
- 7 gypsies Quote Stickers
- Black Ribbon
- Strong Adhesive – I used Pioneer’s Embellishment Stick
- Crop-a-dale
- 7 Photos
Tips:
- Watch out for the glue! I tried my best to be careful and even washed my hands a couple of times but still ended up with a little glue here and there where I didn’t want it.
- Have a plan or make sure you have some extra product on hand. I started to cut my paper and then realized that I wanted to change what I was doing. If you look closely at my banner you will notice that one of the patterns is upside down. That wasn’t ideal, but I had to make it work. J
- Let your perfectionism go! This is always hard for me. I just kept telling myself that the little imperfections will go unnoticed. If you do notice them please don’t tell anyone else! ;)
- Have fun! I sometimes get caught up in what the end result will be and forget to enjoy the creative process of putting it together.
Instructions:
Now there of course is really no right or wrong way to create a banner but here is how I put mine together.
- Using my chipboard pennants I traced them onto the backside of the patterned paper that I wanted to show. Then I cut them out. Pretty basic.
- I then inked the edges of my chipboard pennant s and the patterned paper that I had just cut into pennant shapes.
- I then cut strips of black cardstock and punched them with my border punch.
- I then decided what I wanted to frame the tops and bottoms of my pictures with. I used the die-cut patterned paper as a stencil to trace the bracket design on the different papers I wanted to use. I also used the die-cut paper itself as part of that. Inked all the edges.
- I then attached the recently cut bracket designs to the back of my photos. It took some measuring to make sure that the tops and bottoms were aligned.
- Using some adhesive I attached my photos to the pennant shaped patterned papers. I tried to put the photos in about the same place on each pennant. I also made sure to leave enough room for my letters.
- I then adhered my pennant patterned papers to the chipboard pennants. Here is where I had to be super careful about glue. I used a nonstick surfaced mat to help me keep the surface clean after each pennant.
- I then adhered my black cardstock punched strips to the back of the chipboard pennants. I used adhesive squares. More forgiving and less of a mess.
- Now it is time for embellishing! Because I used photos on my banner I didn’t have much room for adding tons of fun products. I decided to add pearls to my letters to spice them up a bit. I also had some quotes stickers in my stash from a couple of years ago. I decided this was a good project to use them on. Have fun with this step! My Mind’s Eye has some really fun stickers, chipboard pieces, titles, etc. that would be really fun to use. I had stored up quite a bit of it but will have to use them on other projects.
- Tie your pennants together with ribbon and hang! Yay! Enjoy your new home décor piece.
If you haven’t created a banner yet I hope this inspires you to do so!
