Guest Designer for Blissful and Domestic

Hello Crafters!

I have been chosen to be the guest designer over at Blissful and Domestic this week and was asked by Danielle to do a Halloween project for you. There are so many great projects out there to choose from but, choose I must. So I started looking around on Pinterest a bit to get some good ideas that I could incorporate into my project. I have to tell you, you can spend hours "blissfully" going from one pin to another. Ultimately, I decided on a banner for my piano or mantle. Won't you join me for a tutorial?

As a mom of two teenagers I keep pretty busy taking care of my boys and hubby but I love to craft every chance I get. I have been crafting ever since I can remember. I especially love rubber stamping and paper crafts. I have a stash of yarn and jewelry as well. I also enjoy up-cycling projects from things that would normally go into the recycle bin. So coming up with a project for Danielle wasn't hard but I wanted the perfect piece.

OK, here goes. I have recently discovered that tulle in my crafting can really make a project pop. So I gathered some orange, purple, and green to get started. Oh what fun! I also wanted to use some ribbon. Now, anybody that knows me knows that this is a textile I just can't resist. I also gathered up some papers and card stock to create some accordion flowers. The banner I made here is using some banner panels from Stampin Up that I picked up recently. Mostly I used stuff from my stash. 

I cut 1-1/4" & 3/4" strips from Graphic 45 Halloween papers to make my flowers. They are 12" in length and scored every 1/4". Ends were glued together with strong sticky tape. If you haven't made these before they can be a little tricky. Just push the top of the folds on one side to the center and use hot glue to hold them in place. I topped them with filler brads from Stampin' Up and added colored bling dots from my stash to the centers then glued them to the paper flowers. The orange bling wasn't quite a dark enough orange to suit me so used an orange Sharpie marker to color it a bit darker. Loved the way these turned out.

Next I embellished the canvas banners. They were pretty light colored so I inked them up a bit using a sponge and some gray ink. I decorated these as I might a card front really. I used up quite a bit of the embellishments in my stash, not to mention my new fence punch from Martha Stewart (found at Michael's).

The punch for the little ghosties is from Stampin Up. It's actually the owl punch turned upside down. I positioned the eyes on two of them so they would look like they were looking at each other. The stamps I used on these banners were from the dollar bin at Memories on 5th when I worked there a few years ago. All my embellishments were sticky backed but I added some Aleene's Clear Tacky glue to make sure they would be there for a long time. After all, this project is a keeper. I added the ghost eyes and the ghosts with tacky glue as well.

The next thing I worked on was the little witch legs. This is a similar idea to one I saw on Pinterest. The difference here is that I used heavy card stock for the legs instead of cloth and added tulle in the next step. I made the boots first from a pattern I got several years a go from a crafting magazine. You can also use this boot pattern for an elf''s boot with some minor adjustments(don;t cut out heal and curve it at the bottom). I have two of these little witches so I traced and cut four boots and legs. I punched holes and laced with orange ribbon that I tied in a bow. The boots were hot glued to the bottom of the legs and the legs were folded over at least a couple of inches onto my "tulle rope".

To add some "cuteness" to my witch I wanted more than what I saw on Pinterest. So I gathered up some black tulle and made a skirt. Too plain. A purple bow with a button center was the perfect fix. Hot glue in to place.

I started cutting the tulle I bought into 1" strips. This was not an exact science. It was a guesstimate. I also looked through my hoard of ribbon, chose an assortment I thought would look good. Definitely eclectic. So, now I have all my supplies and I get start assembling.

Just a thought worth mentioning. I wanted all my ribbons placed somewhat evenly throughout my project and didn't always have the exact amount to each of every ribbon all the way across. So I laid out my project on my craft table and started dividing up my treasures.

Time to assemble. I took a  piece of orange tulle that was about 6' long and bunched it up so that it was a sort of rope for me to anchor my project on. I tied a knot on the far left and started attaching ribbon and 1" tulle pieces with and overhand knot.

I had a section of ribbon then added my paper flower with hot glue. Again, somewhat tricky. I have the blisters to prove it. Hold your project CAREFULLY while the glue cools. After the flower I added some more ribbon.

The first banner piece was next. I just used some black organdy ribbon to attach to my "tulle rope".

Then more ribbon, another flower, more ribbon then the first witch.

Repeating the pattern add more ribbon, a paper flower, more ribbon and the next banner piece.

You guessed it, more ribbon, a flower, more ribbon and another witch. After that add more ribbon, a paper flower, more ribbon then the last banner piece.

Add more ribbon a paper flower, more ribbon and tie the tulle rope in a knot. Ta Da! The only other thing I did was add some string to hang it with. This turned out to be such a long banner I had to pull it up in the middle when I hung it on my piano.

I will say, if you choose to do a project of this type with all the embellishments I have here, give yourself plenty of time to get it done. I wanted to give this away as a gift or sell it. However, I fell in love with it so I'm going to keep this one. I hope you'll give it a try. It's fun!

Thank you Danielle for letting me be your Guest Designer. It was a lot of fun coming up with this tutorial for you.

Happy Crafting y'all!