My Creative Life: Congratulations Banner

I promised I'd come back and share a banner I'd been working on, and now it's done, so I can share! I made this banner for my husband who will be done with his masters program next month. I wanted to let him know that we are all so proud of him and how hard he's worked, and that getting a masters is hard work, and something worth celebrating!

I used the Build A Banner Simply Created Kit (133507 $19.95) from Stampin' Up!'s holiday catalog and spelled out Congratulations. The colors I used were Island Indigo, Old Olive, Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Basic Gray, and Crushed Curry. I used the stampin' spritzer that comes with the kit and also purchased a few extras for all my colors. I filled the spritzers with 50 drops of re inker and the rest with water. This gave me a very vibrant color, as opposed to a softer toned color. NOTE: The instructions in the kit tell you to use rubbing alcohol in the spritzer, but I didn't have rubbing alcohol when I made my first banner, and water worked great! When I made my second banner, I used rubbing alcohol, and when I sprayed the pennants, the ink bled and ran, and it was one big mess. I decided to ignore the instructions that called for alcohol, and went back to using water. The instructions tell you to use alcohol because it will dry faster, but the water doesn't take that much longer to dry, especially if you're spelling out a long word with your banner. By the time you're done spelling out all your letters, it's usually pretty dry.

A few things to keep in mind: fill the spritzer with re-inker first, then add the water. Count how many drops of re-inker you use, so that if you use a whole bottle of spritzer half way through your project, you can make another bottle with the same color concentration. When using the circle stencil, some of the circles will match up perfectly with the grommets on the pennant, giving you a perfect placement on that pennant. Once you have spritzed your pennant, before picking up the stencil, throw a napkin or paper towel on top of the stencil and pennant to pick up any pooled up ink on the stencil, so that it will not roll off or drip onto the pennant when you remove your stencil. Otherwise, the design on your pennant will get messed up.

After all my pennants were dry, I strung them on the twine and added little pieces of cut ribbon and made knots to add a little more decoration. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. I love the bright colors and think the color combination is fun. It's gender neutral, so the banner can be used over and over again for lots of events and people!