are these the worst pics EVER??!?!

yeah, possibly. (sorry!)

my justification/excuse is: banners are HARD to photograph at the best of times! add to that the total absence of a 6 foot stretch of straight, unadorned wall in my house; and the fact that i brilliantly waited until 9pm on the night before i needed to mail this thing. so yeah--the pictures *STINK* but please allow me the vanity of saying that irl, this is an adorable project and not even terribly difficult to make; and although there's quite a bit of cutting, it's not particularly fussy. you may recall i made a similar project for nephew matthew in the fall, and this is roughly the same procedure, but i'll re-cap.

for my "paper piecing" patterns i used a digital set called kiddie conveyance from designer digitals, which sadly seems to have gone out of print, but you could use any set of digital vehicles, or even an iron-on pattern or a coloring book! the important thing is to find some not-too-complicated cars and trucks you like, and format them to a good "banner size" (mine range from 3" to 6" wide; the tallest is about 5"). i printed them onto plain cardstock which i used to cut the pieces from my patterned papers.

when i had all the bases put together it was time to embellish: i used varying sizes of circle punch for wheels, with brads and epoxies for hubcabs.

i used some old basic grey chipboard monograms to spell carlos' name; each has had a couple of quick coats of black acrylic craft paint with glossy sealer on top.

this "banner" is actually a little bit of a cheat: because i elected to use all different sizes and shapes of car, there is not a natural "balance" that lets it hang properly from the ribbon to which i have sturdily hot glued it by sandwiching the patterned cards with plain black cardstock backs. if you want a "real" banner, choose one car, cut out as many as you need to spell the child's name, and affix a letter to each!

in this case, i just informed carlos' mom of the "design flaw" and sent along a pack of aileen's craft tack to stabilize each letter when she hangs it on his wall! :)

and now, having reached the end of the banner, coincidentally, my post is done, too. nice how that worked out, isn't it?

♥HAPPY THURSDAY, DARLINGS!♥