Be Merry Banner {Lawnscaping#20/Wee Memories#72}

Good morning friends! I finally had the opportunity to craft this weekend. It’s been about a week since I’ve done anything crafty. Things around here have been so crazy with my mom’s medical situation. I just haven’t had the mental energy to craft at all.

Anyway, things kind of calmed down finally on Sunday, and I really needed some creative therapy. I was looking around the blog-o-sphere and was honestly SO inspired by both the Lawnscaping #20 {Paper piecing} and Wee Memories’ #72 {Holiday Madness} Challenges, that decided to combine the two {AGAIN}!


So, I decided to make a Paper pieced Holiday Banner for my office :). I don’t know if I mentioned that my mom and I work together and between her health issues lately, and my boss’ death back in June (his nephew who also works there took over & he’s a great boss BTW), well, we’ve been a bit gloomy at times. I think after Halloween, I’m going to decorate for Christmas. Get us all into the spirit extra early. I’m going to do it at home too. No time to waste. I need the good cheer. Anywho, here is a look at my banner:

{I'm SO sorry the picture is teensy - it’s been terribly rainy here for 3 days straight, and I just couldn't get a full picture that was good :(. Boooo. Scroll down to for a better view of each individual piece of the banner}

To make it I did some fancy recycling by taking cereal boxes and cutting them up and covering them with October Afternoon (Very Merry - from last year) patterned paper. I like to do that, it’s actually makes recycling really fun! I also used the alpha stickers from this collection to make the sentiment “Be Merry”. I knew I’d have to get the awesome Lawn Fawn Snowman on there too, so, I paper pieced “her” and added some accessories (the gloves, hat, and sweet birdie) for fun. I added a bit of Doodlebug (red) flock for the hat/gloves. I think it adds a bit of fun.

When it was all said and done, I decided I really wanted to add the Christmas lights from Lawn Fawn’s Cozy Christmas to the banner too. I love them 0- they’re just so fun! So I stamped them onto white cardstock and did some Copic coloring. To finish them off, I added Glossy Accents over each one and after they dried I paper pieced them onto my banner. Yep - each and every light is paper pieced onto the banner (I stamped it onto the actual banner too - so that the wires would show). In the end, I decided to use embroidery floss as the wires for the light. Just glued it right on. I set large eyelets to make the banner nice and sturdy, and tied each “link” together with 3 layers of Marachino Bakers Twine from the Twinery.

I know you get the idea - but just in case you’re interested, here are pictures of the individual banner pieces ;)

Thanks so much for peeking in on me today! If you can please keep my mom and our family in your prayers - I would really, really appreciate it so much! I hope you have a great one!