Thursday, February 10, 2011

Valentine Banner

I made this Valentine Banner the other week.  I actually started it in Vegas so I could actually be considered part of the "Vegas Collection" but finished it after the flu :0)
I get the emails from Sizzix.com that have the weekly specials.  This was one of the products that caught my eye...
They have a die cut that will cut the paper out for you in the cute scallop and the scalloped circle that goes on the front.  Here is the die view...
I nearly bought it, but quickly talked myself out of the craziness.  I told my self I could make that without the die and spend the money on fabric instead :0)  What I really wanted to do in the first place was make an accordion style heart-shape out of the book pages.  I am diggen' all the art made with book pages lately.  Just before the Vegas trip I ran to Goodwill and bought a couple old books for the project.  Sacrifice some of my own!?!  NEVER!!!
This was the basic shape I started with.  It was pretty dead on too.  The big curve is the top of the heart, the point at the bottom is the point at the bottom of the heart.  My heart ended up needing 24" of paper.  It was about 4 book pages attached end to end, with just 1/2" overlap for the tape.  

Here is what one side will look like... 
I flipped the cutting pattern upside down so you can see how vase-like it is.  Here is what I would tell you to do.  Get your 4 book pages put together, then fold in half so you have a folded piece of paper 12" long.  Draw in PENCIL this basic shape on you book pages, then cut out.  The fattest part of the heart is about 3" wide.  Fan fold, open up, then trim with scissors if it doesn't quite have the shape you are looking for.  You can be there will be shamrocks in my future using this same method. 
Now a note about fan-folding...I folded my heart with each fold a little too wide in my opinion.  I found that the wider the folds, the more paper you will need to get all the way around, and the thicker you shape will be when finished.  When I was finished experimenting/coming up with my pattern, I fan-folded each fold about 1/4-1/2" and was much happier with the outcome.  Beware that the folding is very annoying and monotonous when making a whole banner :0)  It is worth it...don't stop...YOU CAN DO IT!!! 
When my pile of supplies looked like this I was ready to assemble.  I used my daughter's Cricut to cut out the circles, scalloped circles and the letters I used.  The pages were something like 6" wide, so after I fan-folded, I snipped the extra inches off to use later with another project. 

You know me well enough to have guessed there would be a ton of distressing with distressing ink going on.  I so love it.  Oh, I will mention now that you might want to be selective when selecting your book.  I saw a steamy love story and thought it would be quite fitting for my Valentines Banner.  However, I was not prepared at what would be *POP*ing off the page at me and how traumatic some of it would be :0)
SOooooo, maybe stick to historic biographies or something like that.

I will also tell you that I have given up on almost all of the expensive adhesives out there and use hot glue for everything!!!  I used my ATG adhesive thingy for putting the pages together end to end, but every single thing else I hot glued, the circles to the accordian circles, the letters to the front, each piece to the ribbon-HOT GLUE the Breakfast Of Champions!!! maybe not breakfast, but you really don't need anything else glue wise and it beats everything else hands down in price!

Ta-Dah- Valentine Banner.  I Love it!  Even my husband has remarked a couple times how nice it looks.  If I make another one I think I will put a solid color as the back, even a flat circle/scalloped circle so it would stand out more on my walls.  But this one, I am keeping! 
Stay tuned for the Shamrocks :0) and have a 
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

3 comments:

  1. I'm sorry I haven't been by to see your projects and comment on your blog in a while. I haven't been feeling well. This is cute! Thank you for sharing.

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  2. I love it. I like how you have the instructions too, for uncrafty people like me who might actually try to make something cool one of these days.

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