DIY WEDDING: WEDDING PENNANT BANNERS

I recently viewed a blog that featured pictures of a country wedding reception. The celebration took place in a restored, historic barn in New England which was decorated with a plethora of cloth pennant banners spanning the entire length of the open rafters. According to Wikipedia, “The word [banner] derives from late Latin bandum, a cloth out of which a flag is made." "A banner is a flag or other piece of cloth bearing a symbol, logo, slogan or other message. Banner-making is an ancient craft.” Apparently, banner crafting is not a new idea.

The wedding banners I have mentioned featured the colors and symbols of the wedding party and proved to be an integral part of the festive and celebratory atmosphere. I wondered what those banner-crafters of “ancient date” would have been able to accomplish if they had been able to use the incredible Cricut^® products of today.

Be sure to check out Crafty Kimber's excellent cartridge exploration of Garden Soup cartridge in today?s Chirp. You?ll also find helpful crafting tips and glean great crafting ideas from Cricut^® message board members in this week?s newsletter. 

As always, I wish you success in your crafting adventures!

Lonna Joy Smoot
Editor, Cricut^® CHIRP!

CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

Name: Lucy Kelleher

About Me: I have been crafting for over 15 years and love to make just about anything crafty: cards, layouts, mini albums, explosion albums, banners, and other projects.

Instructions:

Card:

• Use the Art Philosophy cartridge and Card feature to cut one 4 ?" stamp card.
• Use the Create a Critter cartridge to cut one 3" monkey.
  
• Use the Close to My Heart Celebrations Stamp Set for the sentiment.

Pennants:

• Use the Art Philosophy cartridge to cut 6.9" pennants.
• Use the Create a Critter cartridge to cut 2" and 3" monkeys.
• Use the Art Philosophy cartridge to cut 4 ?" and 5" flowers.

Cartridge Used: Create a Critter, Art Philosophy

MESSAGE BOARD HIGHLIGHTS

This week's highlighted threads are:

• Wedding Banner
• Mr. & Mrs. Card
• Wedding Album
• Art Philosophy Wedding Layout
• Spring Wall Hanging
• BHoppy Birthday - Easter Birthday Banner

CARTRIDGE EXPLORATION

Each day the weather gets warmer I look forward to working in the yard. My favorite part about doing yard work is pulling up those weeds. I love making the yard look nice, and that?s why the Garden Soup cartridge caught my eye. Garden Soup is full of gardening-themed images such as insects, worms, snails, leaves, flowers, gardening tools, corn, tomatoes, squash, green beans, and other vegetables. This Everyday cartridge has six creative features: Layer, Phrase, Phrase Layer, Border, Honeycomb, and Seed Packet.

Garden Soup also has a wide variety of phrases: busy, garden, yummy, fresh, bugs, canned love, seeds, bloom, with love, thanks, 4 you, and our harvest. The Border feature places each of the main images in an easy border setting. I love the Honeycomb feature?each image comes with a solid honeycomb for easy layering?and the Seed Packet feature. I think these features are great for making gifts for friends and neighbors. For a fun and simple gift, you could cut one of the seed packets and place some candy inside. Then just add a tag to every packet and deliver them to your neighbors or friends. The Garden Soup images are perfect for scrapbook pages or even a party. You can use the leaves to create an invitation for a simple family or neighborhood party. The images on this cartridge are designed for easy layering so your project will pop and stand out.

One thing I need to point out is that the Garden Soup cartridge comes with 3D boxes. If you go to page 76 in the handbook, you will see the overlay for the Honeycomb feature. There are several octagon boxes on the fourth row. The cartridge designer gave us tons of options for how to assemble these 3D boxes. The first two buttons are the bottom/base of the box. You?ll notice that the artist has given us a 3D box all in one, but if you want a bigger box than what can be cut on 12" x 12" cardstock, the artist has also given us an option to cut out the bottom of the box in sections. You will need to use the Shift button to cut out extra base sections and glue them to the image with the bottom box. You can do the same with the box lid. The fifth button on this row will give you a solid octagon to glue inside the lid and box. This will make your box stronger. The sixth and seventh buttons have options for decorating the top of the box, and both work with the keyhole that?s cut out of the lid. The last three buttons are border patterns to glue around the outside of the lid. The bottom row of on the Honeycomb feature also provides you with a beehive box, and you can cut six different tags to compliment the 3D boxes.

I?ve included my Cricut Craft Room? cut file for my little green leaf box. Download the file and then unzip it. Log in to the Cricut Craft Room? design tool and click the Import button. Select the unzipped cut file. Once that has been imported, click on Garden in your project list to open the cut file. As a final note, I find it easiest to assemble these boxes together with glue dots or tape runners. Using regular glue takes too long to dry.

The Garden Soup cartridge is great for decorating a gift bag, making birthday cards and invitations, decorating a canned jar, making a treat box, and cutting out the vegetables and gluing them on popsicle sticks for placement in your indoor garden. I like to start planting seeds right about now, and this would be an easy way to mark my containers until I move them to the bigger garden. You can cut some tags and any of these images and then use them as label for your garden supplies area. The boxes are great for giving gifts to your mom or grandmother or to store unused seeds.

Check back next week as I continue exploring new cartridges. Happy crafting!

Crafty Kimber

HELP FROM THE EXPERTS

Need some help? Provo Craft ^® Customer Support is here for you! Never hesitate to call in (1-888-922-4725 or 1-888-92ccircle for Cricut Circle™ questions); we have people ready to help you! We are currently open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mountain Time. If these hours do not work with your schedule, please send an email to support@provocraft.com.

Have a great week!
Customer Support

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that.”
— Michael Leunig