
I usually try to take off during the weekends. I am getting better at shutting the craftroom door and doing other things like hanging with the family. There are a few weekends that slip in here or there but i admit i do love them. The online crop at Cocoa Daisy was this past weekend. It was a blast....lots of laughter, lots of inspiration, lots of prizes, and to be honest lots of work....planning, organizing, running, etc. So i am taking today, Monday, off. Andy & I are going to go play, hang out, and just be.
While i am out playing, here's how i put together the above Christmas Banner using Lily Bee Christmas Town & October Afternoon Very Mery lines. I created it for the Cocoa Daisy Crop knowing i wanted to hang lots of garland around the house this holiday season. I am thinking of creating a couple more, maybe one for the tree.
Punch a bunch of shapes. I used stars & circles, approximately 2.5 & 2" respectively. I actually used my die cut machine to cut them. You need even pairs. Mine are cut from double sided pattern paper. You are going to see the backside of the paper. My best estimate is there are approximately 176 shapes total.
Make sure you have a full bobbin ready to go. Take two of the same shapes and put them together with the same pattern on the outsides. If you are a sewer then put your wrong sides together & rights on the outsides.
I put all the shapes in stacks by color. I randomly pull the shapes to stitch. What helps me keep the stitches going is having a line up of shapes to feed through the sewing machine. Now you are ready to start sewing. You will stitch through both shapes and the feed the next shape. You can leave a little space...its ok. The machine can handle it. Just be patient and remember slow & steady wins the race. If you need to pause to add more shapes into your line up, pause when you have a shape in the sewing machine.

My banner is really really long so i found stacking it shape on shape easier so it wouldn't twist up. TRUST ME you don't want it to twist up. Right Pop?

Take the first shape in your banner and fold the sides towards the center. Do this with both sides of the shape. Keep going until you have done this with all the shapes. You will end up with this cool 3-D banner just in time for the holidays.

I am planning to fold the pieces flat after christmas and stack them on top of each other. I will hold it together with a clothes pin & store it in my christmas bins.
Happy Creating....