DREAM banner with Aiko

It's Megan back this month with something a little different. I just adore the Aiko line so I went back to that and decided to make this banner. It involved a lot of fussy cutting, but it's not a big deal because I just do it while I watch TV in the evenings. I wanted the banner itself to reflect the 'DREAM' sentiment.

I started by fussy cutting the large clouds from the Blue Sky paper. To give the banner a little more stability, I matted the clouds on a cloudy plastic that I got... at the dollar store! That plastic is from a flexible cutting mat. They sell them in the Dollar Tree in a pack of two for a dollar. I didn't even use up one for this project!

I love how the frosty acrylic adds to the cloud feel, so I left a little border around each cloud. If you just wanted stability, you could use chipboard or cardboard or whatever on the back of the clouds. Regular clear acrylic would work too.

Next, I moved onto the flowers. I had a vision of cascades of cherry blossoms, 'falling' from the clouds like rain drops. I cut out about 100 flowers from the Blue Sky, Little Princess and One Fine Day papers - for variety. I had plenty of leftover Blue Sky from cutting out the clouds, so those flowers make up the bulk of the flowers.

I had planned to use my sewing machine to stitch them together, but decided that it would be too difficult to do with the tiny ones. So, I used a plain old needle and thread. I had cut two flowers for each one I wanted to hang, so I could put them back to back. I figured that they would twist a little as they hang, so I wanted them to be double sided.

I didn't bother gluing them together, just hand sewed an 'x' in the middle of each one, leaving about an inch before starting on the next one. I also didn't bother tying off the thread in between each one, so they can slide a little, but with an 'x' they don't move easily. In all of that hand stitching I only stabbed myself with the needle twice! and only once was under the fingernail (ouch!)

After stitching all of them into lines of three, I used some of my regular ATG glue to adhere them to the back of the clouds, which were already threaded with the ribbon. Then I glued a even MORE clouds, that I cut from the Bouquet paper, using the other clouds as templates and cutting them a little smaller, to the back using fabric glue. The fabric glue sticks to the ribbon and the thread to keep them both put.

Since I envisioned the threads turning a little as they hang, I thought a little sparkle was in order too, so I added a dot of stickles to the center of each flower. The stickles serve to further keep the flowers in place, add a little sparkle, and hide my imperfect stitching.

For the letters, I used my cricut and the Sophisticated cartridge to cut some of the Lipstick and Kiss solid papers.

Each cloud was further embellished with some die cut flowers, clouds and rolled flowers, along with some fussy cut small clouds and more flowers from the Blue Sky paper. The finishing touch is a little bit of bling on each of the red flowers, and on each of the pink flowers that were sewn between each cloud.