Banner Craze

Banners are hot right now in scrapbooking - and all over the place. I've fallen under the banner spell, too. The patterns of the Bo Bunny Birdie paper just begged to be cut out, however they weren't the right shape for the usual banner swagged across the top of the page.

So, I layered them under my photos. I've seen versions of this design in a few places - if you're on pinterest you can see examples here, here, and here.  I layered pieces of paper, a few cut freehand in a banner shape to break up the line and some circular patterns cut directly from the Bo Bunny Birdie paper.

For a photo mat, I used a scrap piece of the Giggles paper left over from another project. I liked the lime green color, but I wanted something without a strong pattern. However, my original plan to put a 4x6 photo behind the banner didn't pan out, in that my scrap was too small.

I found these Hipstamatic pictures taken with my phone. The camera app takes square photos and adds a border, among other effects. I printed out several to try out and decided on using these two. One would've worked fine and left room on the mat for journaling. In fact, I may try this design again but use a single 3 1/2 x 5 photo and let the bottom show below the "banner."

Once I had all the paper adhered down I grabbed some buttons, brads and chipboard elements to add more interest. And a noticeable smudge on the edge of the paper became an "embellishment opportunity" -- I trimmed part of a tag and added date & location info.