Lovebirds Banner

When I was in my last semester at Murray, I started attending classes at a local scrapbook shop and even participated in a recipe swap group that met monthly for a potluck and exchanged scrapped recipe pages. I never got around to creating a single traditional scrapbook (though I still have great intentions), but the skills I learned have become invaluable in a variety of other paper crafts.

This week's Tuesday Talent focuses on one of those crafts--a paper banner I made last spring for a wedding shower. The theme of the shower was lovebirds, and the wedding colors were yellow and green, so I used those colors for my banner, but the same instructions for this banner could be used with few alterations to make an number of different banners!

Supplies:
Cardstock (two different colors for the birds' bodies and a third contrasting color for the letters)
Lighter weight scrapbook paper (for birds' wings)
Brads (to connect birds)
Ribbon (to tie on each end of the banner)

Step One: Cut out your various shapes.
Now, I used my Silhouette to cut out the birds, their wings and the letters. I love my Silhouette primarily because, unlike other digital cutting machines on the market when I bought mine, you can download, then alter, shapes to cut out. For example, I didn't quite like the shape of the wings, so I played around with it until it was just right. Likewise, the birds didn't exactly match the picture in my head, so I just made the changes and was good to go. Unfortunately, this project coincided with a dull cutting blade, and I chose a pretty detailed font for the letters, so it took an exacto knife and a steady hand to finish cutting out each letter.

Step Two: Attach the embellishments to the base shape.
Once I had everything cut out and laid out to my liking (J can tell you how many times I switched out the birds--Should a yellow bird kiss a green bird? Should they alternate colors?--before I settled on this arrangement.), I started adding the wings to the birds' bodies, then the letters. In both cases, I used a Xyron Create-a-Sticker machine (I have both the 1.5" and the 5" sizes). Basically, these machines apply adhesive to the back of whatever you run through it to turn it into a sticker.



Step Three: Connect the base shapes.
Many banners use ribbon that extends the entire length of the banner and just slide the base shapes onto the ribbon at set intervals. For this banner, though, I wanted the birds to actually be kissing and I couldn't figure out how to showcase that without ribbon getting in the way. The solution? Brads--those convenient little paper-fasteners that you've probably not thought about since kindergarten (or at least, I hadn't!). I found a set of mini-brads at a local scrapbooking store that worked perfectly. I overlapped each pair of beaks, punched a small hole through the two, and inserted a brad. After I had all of the pairs put together, I went back and connected the tail feathers in the same way.

Step Four: Add ribbon.
Since I didn't use ribbon to connect the base shapes of the banner, I had to improvise a way to hang it when complete. I punched a small rectangular hole in the tail feather of each of the two end birds and slid the end of a length of ribbon through. I knotted that end on the back side of the bird so it was hidden.

Step Five: Hang and enjoy!





I'm linking up today with Beth from The Stories of A to Z, who is starting a regular Tuesday Tips & Tutorials linky party. I'm so happy that it fits so well with my Tuesday's Talents theme, so on those weeks when I can actually share how I do what I do, I hope to link up with her. If you came here from there, I hope you like what you see! I have a different theme every day, so stick around--there's always something new! If you're one of my regular readers, I hope you'll head over to Beth's blog to learn something new from her readers today!