Twelve Days of Christmas Banner

About three years ago, I saw a banner being made and thought at the time that the Twelve Days of Christmas would be a great subject for a banner.



To make the foundations for each pennant, I cut 12 triangles of chipboard 6" wide by 8" long. By cutting one of the triangles upside down, I was able to cut three from each sheet of 12" x 12" chipboard. I adhered the chipboard triangles to the reverse of Fancy Pants Tradition Holiday Sentiments and Christmas Morning patterned paper and cut each one out. I used a Krylon 18ct gold leafing pen along the front and edges of each covered triangle.



To make the pretty dangles, I strung beads onto beading wire, punched a hole at the bottom of each pennant and wound the beading wire through and around the hole before securing at the back with a little tape. I also punched holes at each of the other two points of the triangles ready for threading the pennants together into the banner.

For the Twelve Days of Christmas images, I bought a set of Christmas Island 1977 postage stamps, scanned the whole set in one go at 1200dpi and then used Adobe Photoshop to crop each individual stamp into its own image. I printed the images onto gesso primed canvas, fitting 6 onto each A4 sheet. I bought the canvas pads absolutely yonks ago from a pound shop.



I created paper rosettes using a 3" scalloped circle punch, ruler and bone folder. Wendy has written some detailed instructions. I added either Ranger Frosted Lace Stickles or leafing pen around the very edge and a button to the centre of each rosette.



I inked Crafty Bitz chipboard snowflakes (currently out of stock but there are some alternatives here and here) with a Brilliance Dew Drop Moonlight White ink pad. I then spritzed them generously with Tattered Angels Pearl glimmer mist.



The stars are from a very old pack of American Crafts chipboard embellishments. I used the leafing pen on the reverse side and spritzed very lightly with the glimmer mist.



Another item from the depths of my aged stash was this gold ribbon from which I cut three of the circle designs.



I shared these basic embellishments amongst the pennants and then added variety by mixing in some bling, buttons, pearl brads and charms.



Before threading the pennants onto the ribbon, I wrapped a small piece of tape around the end of the ribbon so that it was a little like the end of a shoelace. Once they were evenly spaced along the ribbon, I used a length of tape on the back of each pennant to hold them in place.



I finished the banner by tying a loop and adding a beaded dangle at each end.



All that was left to do was to hang it above the fireplace!