Robin's Birdhouse: Halloween Banners

Hi everyone! I am the guest designer over at Chattering Robins today – the blog site for The Robin’s Nest. I’m so excited to be able to share my project, which uses their wonderful scrapbook papers & embellishments. I created two different holiday banners using the same technique but different papers and embellishments.

Each of these banners was made using two different sheets of The Robin's Nest papers. One uses Black Bats Glitter (the B side) and Almost Black Classic Glitter Cardstock. The other uses Ghost Camo Glitter and Haunted House card stock. What fun patterns! I also used some wonderful glittery black chipboard bats from the Transylvania collection. And I can't forget the Dew Drops! They are were awesome to add dimension to this project.

Each banner is 6 /14" wide and 12" long. The width of the banner was designed to fit on a #2 pencil. I chose to use a pencil for the banner's top bar to make it easier to hang without allowing it to curl. Here in the Midwest we get dew or frost most autumn mornings, which can be a little rough on paper decorations because of the humidity. Using my craft knife, I cut the erasers off of two Halloween pencils and glued Dew Drops to the end of each one with Sakura's 3D Crystal Lacquer.

When I sat down to make this project, I was only going to make one. The black bat banner is what was in my head. I thought about it for a day or so before I actually put scissors to paper to make the panels. After adhering the inner two paper panels with double sided carpet tape, wrapped them with a metallic orange honeycomb ribbon to give the banner a little shine. Once the ribbon was taped in place on the back of the center panel they were attached to the back piece.

I stamped and heat embossed letters from the Almost Black cardstock so that they would blend in and colored them in with an orange glaze pen. A strip of orange glittery ribbon at the bottom of the banner gives it a nice border to balance out the orange pencil at the top. I pulled the black Diamond Dew Drops from my bottle of the Abracadabra mix to accent the ribbon and two black Tear Drops for the head of the bats.

After the panels and embellishments were in place, I used an eyelet template to evenly space the ribbon holes and then added copper colored grommets. (Silver was used on the other banner.)

When I ordered the Haunted House paper I thought it was just going to end up in my scrapbook. Wrong! I couldn't resist making another banner with it. It's so cute! And while the first banner took a while to design, this one practically made itself. The B-side of the Ghost Camo Glitter is a black and orange striped design, which made a wonderful background. The haunted house is matted on a black panel for a better outline.

The top of this banner is another strip of black card stock that I punched using my Fiskar's leaf border punch. The back of Haunted House is a different orange and black striped pattern and there was a wide orange stripe exactly the right size to fit under the leaves so that they show up without black stripes going through them.

I heat embossed "BOO" on the second half of top of the haunted house page so that they would color match. The largest of the leftover ghosts from the second half of the camo page was fussy cut (with a few additional curves trimmed off) and I attached both the word and ghost with foam tape. Black and pearl petite Dew Drops from the Classified mix adorn the fence posts. And because the haunted house page was cut down a couple of inches, I ended up with half of the fence leftover on my table. I cut out the little faces and added them with foam tape, as well. The little pumpkin on the fence is highlighted with orange and green Glaze pens.

Once the banners were done, the pencils were laced on using thin ribbon - making sure to securely wrap around the pencil at each hole. I started in the center and worked my way out to keep the pattern even on both sides. When it was in place, a tiny drop of 3D Crystal Lacquer was placed along each edge of ribbon...just enough to keep the pencil from slipping around. I removed the two tiny pieces of scotch tape that were holding the ribbon after the glue dried.

Now they're ready to hang up and join my other holiday decorations. And since I made two instead of one, I'm going to take the extra to work and decorate my work cubby. I just need to decide which one...