Birthday Banner

The Twins' Disney Planes birthday party was great! I finished the birthday banner and the cupcake holders just in time. We had great weather and the boys were adorable. Hard to believe they are 2.

I used the CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge to cut the banner shapes and the stars with overlays.  The banner shapes are cut at 7.5 Real Dial Size (RDS) from Orange cardstock,  while the inner layer -- a gorgeous pearlescent blue -- was at 7.0 RDS.

CTMH used to sell a chipboard pennant set for use with the Art Philosophy cartridge; I used it on another banner. It's no longer available but since I used cardstock, I cut a "backing" piece out at 6.75 RDS. I just used some older blue plain cardstock that I won't be using on anything else.  I found some pump spray adhesive (E6000) with low odor - what a find! It was so easy to spray it on the backing piece and adhere them. I made a spray booth out of a box and it worked out great. Since it is a liquid glue, the paper curled a bit, so I put all the pieces under a giant-size dictionary (yes, i am a word-nerd) for 24 hours to flatten them.

When adding the inner layer on the front, though, I smeared a bit the E6000 glue on the shimmery side of the first one so I switched to double-stick tape as I didn't want to chance messing up the remaining  pennants.

The Hobby Lobby chipboard letters are painted with Acrylic paint. I tested the letters first by painting the "Q" to see if the color was better without a base coat or if I should coat them with white first. I liked the darker shade of paint on the chipboard for this project, but if one were to want a brighter color, the chipboard  definitely need a base coat.

I cut the stars and overlays also with tge CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge. I had a big pile of stars and overlays...so note to self: stack them neatly keeping the shapes aligned at the top as they are cut. This will make it much easier to line up the overlays. I spent a LOT of time sorting stars and turning them so that I could find the exact fit. Who knew. But once I lined them up, I saved a ton of trimming time!

To adhere the letters I used Zots. Then I punched holes in each pennant and strung them on some royal blue twine that I had in my stash.

After the initial design phase of a project -- when I'm in my basement craft area -- it's usually just assembly that's left. I've started to do assembly work upstairs to be with my husband or watch our shows, yet still continue to work on projects.

I had the pennants lined up on the couch as I worked at the coffee table. I punched holes in each pennant and strung them on some royal blue twine from my stash.

I hung it up on our entertainment center to add ribbon between all the letters to keep them spaced appropriately.

It was a fun project and I know I'll be making more pennants in the future!