Saturday Creativity

Earlier this week, I made this cute banner for someone on Etsy. I posted pictures of it to the Facebook page I created for my Etsy shop, and promptly got a response from an old high school friend. Her son is turning one soon, and she was interested in pricing, etc. I sent her the information and she said, "Let's do it!"

After getting an idea of what her theme and colors for his party would be, today, I got down to the business of making a one-of-a-kind banner for the special day.

There's a process to making a banner, so I took pictures along the way.

First, I go through my papers and pick out the best ones. In this case, I
had my friend's party theme to work with, and the gingham and polka dot
papers didn't end up working.

It's good to have a plan--I spell out all the words and then select colors
for each individual triangle in the banner. In this case, green and blue.

I used my template to trace and then cut the triangles.

Next it was time to fire up the Cricut (think cricket) cutting machine.

I love this thing, but it's high-maintenance. I have to hold the paper down
while it cuts, or else it shifts around and ruins the letters.

The fun part!

For this banner, I cut the letters in light blue, and then shadows in royal
blue. There's always tea on hand.

Then I glue the letters to their shadows and set them aside to dry.

I skipped the next few steps...basically, I lay out the triangles and start lining things up how I want them before I start gluing the letters down, etc. Today, I went back to the Cricut and made several royal blue and turquoise dots to glue down on the triangles.

The finished product--a little too long to get a decent pic of the
whole thing!

I love how my do-it-yourself polka dots turned out, and I hope my friend loves the banner!