*Valentine* Banner

Last year I made this banner for Valentine's Day. I still really like it, but I wanted to make a new one so that I could put last year's in my kitchen and put the new one in my entry way. This one used more letters than most of my other banners so it hangs a little lower, but it fits perfectly. One more letter and I would have run into trouble. In fact, I shouldn't admit it, but I did run into some trouble. I use a ton of the letter "e" when I am making my banners and I had completely run out. I had to get creative and turn a c into a letter e....it is the last one on the banner. So....if you ever get in a crunch, look and see what letters you can trim, cut or glue back together to make something else! LOL!

All of the papers are "Lost and Found" and they are perfect for the feel I was going for. I used paper doilies for the medallions on the v, e and i and then decided that I needed one under every single accordion medallion as well. This banner is super thick and super heavy, but I really like how it turned out.

I stamped the crown images and punched them out using one of my Martha Stewart punches. I placed them in-between each of the rosettes on the top. The rosettes are from Prima and I love them. They are perfect! The tickets are from Tim Holtz. I die cut the ric-rac using the PTI die and black felt. I only used two pieces since the banner was starting to get very heavy and I worried it might look a little "over embellished" by the time I was done. As much as I like heavy embellishment, sometimes more is just more!

Of course I had to add a little bit of sewing. I chose to use a black thread to really make it pop. I was hoping that what ever was in my sewing machine would work, but it was light pink and I thought it would get lost. I need black thread in my machine for my next project anyway. I will share that with you soon, too. I distressed all of the edges using Walnut Stain distress ink by Tim Holtz. It is one of my favorites and while it is super dark, it worked nicely with all of the dark papers. Thanks for fluttering by! ETA* I realized that my watermark on the banner photos gives the image copyright to Papertrey Ink which is not correct.