A Christmas Banner Tutorial

Well, I guess it's that time of year again, yes, the Holiday Season is approaching very quickly...

The other day I was thinking, I need to make something out of paper, you know, old book pages. I have a book titled: "Little Lady Clare" written by Evelyn Everett-Green printed in 1888. Unfortunately it already had a few pages torn out of it and the spine of the book was falling apart. Otherwise I would have treasured it, I mean 122 years old, amazing. So, I decided to make this garland using some of the pages and some other craft supplies I already had. 

 I folded each page by hand, folds are about 1/2 inch wide,

 I trimmed the ends with my heavy duty pinking shears. 

Then folded the page in half, like a fan.

I then stapled the the folded pages in the middle. 

 I used double sided tape to form the fan shape that I needed, being very careful not to rip the fragile  paper.

 Here comes the messy part: I used an old pin box, putting glue in the lid and my glitter in the bottom part...I'd forgotten how messy glitter is! I used the larger glitter which is not as bad as that really fine stuff.

 I dipped each fan in the glue first (I used Gorilla Glue) then into the glitter, moving it around a bit to make sure the ends all had glitter on them. I then let them dry for a bit, while I got busy making other parts.

 In my paper stash, I found a nice white craft paper that has shiny gold swirls on it, and cut out a triangle template. Using the template I cut out 15 triangles with my craft scissors. 

I used the Victorian for a pretty edge.

 In my craft paper stash, I had a couple of pages of lettering, in different styles.

I chose one that would look good with the antique paper as well as the craft paper.
I then glued the letters (this time using my glue gun- not a fan of glue guns) to each of the triangles.

I looked in my collection of ribbons and string and found a vintage package of seam binding tape that was very close in color to the old paper. I used my glue gun to attach all the fans to the seam binding ribbon, pressing down firmly (and consequently burning my thumb - please don't do that part! :)

 I then glued the lettered triangle piece on top of the "ribbon".

 Don't forget to clean up the glue gun strings.

The finished garland is a beautiful keepsake that can be used for years to come.

(Unfortunately it's too long to get a picture of the whole garland, but you get the idea).

A little here, a little there, all said, the whole thing took almost 3 hours to complete. I really love the outcome. It's so pretty.

So, what do you think, ready to tackle one for yourself?

Have fun!

I think I may just make a few more.

This particular one is for sale in my etsy shop.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SandySeashore

Thanks for following!

xx

Sandra