Sara's Blog

I love using my scrapbooking supplies for projects outside my scrapbook—from tags to little gifts and even party decorations. This week, I was inspired when Personal Shopper member Antoinette emailed me from South Africa with a sweet message and a very fun papercrafting idea. She says:

“I really love the Personal Shopper kits and feel it is real value for money (even with the high dollar exchange rate in South Africa). I made a lovely banner for my 2 year old daughter for her birthday using the March kit and being able to have such a big selection of papers and items each month encourages me to start using it instead of feeling that it'll be wasted.”

She says she got the basic idea for this cool banner from Craft TV Weekly and it only took her an afternoon to make it from scratch. She adds, “I could make about 3 extra banners with the abundance of products left over from the kit!!!”

I asked Antoinette if I could show her banner here and if she had any tips to share. She generously agreed, so here they are:

1. The banner was made for a Shrek themed b-day party so I printed my daughter's name in a Shrek font and cut it out along the edges.
2. I drew a heart shaped design on a square piece of chipboard and used a strong pair of scissors to cut out the design multiple times.
3. I then glued the chipboard down on a various full sheets from the "Citrus Use 'Em for Anything" papers to incorporate the designs on the papers at the right angle on the heart shape.
4. I repeated this with each chipboard shape and then used some Memory Mists ink on square blocks of paper to mount the letters using foam tape.
5. I embellished each shape with the various elements provided in the kit like the super sized brad, silk flowers, colored and printed brads from the creative pack.
6. I punched a hole in the upper left and right corners of the hearts and tied them together using the ribbons from the Personal Shopper kit.

Antoinette also sent me this photo of her with her adorable daughter—it looks like a great party and I bet the banner was a hit! Thanks, Antoinette, for the inspiration!