Let It Snow!

Boy do I love the winter! Strictly speaking, we are not quite there yet but I am going to risk this one a little earlier and all the other snow bunnies out there will forgive me I am sure!

This has all come about after our recent hols in beautiful Hampshire. We rented a 16th century house and stayed for a week. Gorgeous!

And Christmas has come to our house in the form of some goodies from Sizzix! I have a new Big Shot now and many new dies to road test for you so we will be seeing lots of these in the coming weeks.

And why wait? I am going to use this wonderful kit right now!

Today we are making a banner with a pretty snowflake and some lettering. This is something that can adorn your house until springtime - in blues, grey and white, it doesn't scream Christmas at everyone so it will not be out of place in the dark months after our yule fest.

Here is a sneak preview....

This one couldn't be more straightforward to make and using a Sizzix Big Shot die cutter makes the lettering a breeze too. so what will we need?

You will need: 
a 40cm x 30cm  piece of plain grey fabric (linen or similar for some texture)
40cm x 30cm plain backing fabric
some white felt squares
a piece of blue felt
a small scrap of patterned fabric
dark blue perle 8 cotton
pale blue and white sequins
pale blue or grey sewing thread
pale blue grosgrain bow
fray stopper
dremel hot glue gun
sizzix big shot die cutting machine
snowflake  template
sizzix lollipop shadow letter die set
20cm pale blue grosgrain ribbon
30cm long stick with the bark still on
water soluble marker
glue stick

Seam allowance has been added already.

Okay so here we go. First of all, take the grey fabric and the plain backing and cut a pennant. Start with a rectangle 38cm x 25cm and then, with your water soluble marker, measure halfway across (12.5cm) the bottom and make a mark. Measure 10cm up on each side from the bottom and make a mark there too. This forms the point. 

Cut the point. You now have two pieces of fabric, the front and the back. Put the back aside for now.
Here is the pennant ready to be embellished...

Use the lollipop shadow die set to cut the letters to spell 'let', 'it' and 'snow' from the white felt. Put the letters aside.

Here is a template for your snowflake. 

Print it off (the size should be 7.5cm across the widest part. Trace around it onto your fabric scrap with the water soluble maker and then cut out. Use the glue stick to adhere the fabric snowflake to the piece of blue felt.

Position the snowflake in the centre of the pennant and adhere with the glue stick. Next, take some sequins and your hand sewing thread and sew the sequins onto the snowflake and the snowflake to the pennant at the same time.

Now take the letters that you cut earlier and position them around the snowflake so that they look pleasing - they can be straight, curved or higgledy piggledy. Hot glue them on...

So what is the difference between hot glue and a glue stick? A glue stick doesn't form a strong bond so it is better backed up with thread. use it when you want to anchor something when sewing which may be too small or awkward for pins. Hot glue can be used alone and no stitching is needed.  There you go! Mystery solved!

Take some more sequins and sew them at random like falling snowflakes around the central motif...

You will need some hanging tabs too so those go next. measure in 5 cm from each top corner and use about 12 cm of ribbon for each tab. Sew the tabs on by machine.

Now take the backing fabric and with the tabs tucked in and the fabrics right sides together, pin all around. Machine sew leaving a small gap for turning out. Clip across the corners to reduce bulk and tun out through the gap. Slip stitch the gap closed.

Thread a needle with the blue perle cotton and make a running stitch about 1/2 cm in from the edge, carefully rolling the side so that none of the backing fabric is visible.
Take  your grosgrain bow and treat the ends with fray stopper. Sew it to the point of the banner....

It is time to hang it up now. Choose a rustic stick about the thickness of your thumb or even thicker for a nice statement and thread it through the tabs. I like birch for this if I can get it. Tie some twine to the stick to hang. Keep it all looking rugged. The rough look of the wood, twine and linen contrast really nicely with sparkly refinement of the sequins.

Oh, by the way, I am not sure if you know but the best way to get creases out of linen is to spritz it with a very fine mist of water. You could iron until doomsday and scorch it before the creases go. A mist of water relaxes the fabric and the creases just vanish!

I couldn't get the right stick so I chose one which was pretty close and painted it white with one of DecoArt Americana's wonderful chalky paint finishes. I used lace which is an off white. Just give it a coat and allow to dry well before putting everything together.

Well here it is again hopefully if we all hang these out together, it will be a sure bet for a lovely white Christmas!

Thank you so much for stopping by! Dont' forget the competition running all this month; join my site and you can win a stamp set. The winner will be announced in my first blog for December. Here is what you can win...

Love and hugs

Debbie xxx