Sailing Off Into The Sunset

Oh my goodness what a morning I’ve had! I mentioned yesterday that lots of the products being retired by Stampin’ Up! are selling out, and it’s playing havoc with my blog plans. I don’t think I’ve ever seen stamp sets sell out the way they have been, despite the fact they they’re generally not discounted. However, at the time of writing, the Sailing Home Stamp Set, Smooth Sailing Dies and the three other retiring products used on today’s project are still available. But for how much longer is anyone’s guess.

SAILING HOME

When I realised today’s planned project used products that are no longer available it meant I had to start again from scratch. So after checking the Stampin’ Up! inventory list I settled on the Sailing Home Stamp Set and pulled out three stamps.

First onto Thick Very Vanilla Card I stamped the lighthouse using Early Espresso ink. Then I stamped the compass with Evening Evergreen ink. Finally I stamped the sentiment “Let hope be your anchor through the storms of life” using the retiring Misty Moonlight ink.

Will all the stamping done my next task was to cut out the pieces. This was an easy task using the coordinating Smooth Sailing Dies and Mini Stampin’ Cut & Emboss Machine. For the compass image I grabbed my Layering Circles Dies and the #2 plain edge die (counting from the smallest up).

It was only now that I decided to turn the pieces into a banner and I knew exactly where to turn, the New Horizons 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack. I found a sheet with a stormy feel and cut it to 5″ wide then mounted it onto a 5-1/4″ x 6-1/4″ piece of Night of Navy Card using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow).

BANNER DAY

To create the banner I cut a 5-1/2″ x 6-3/4″ piece of retiring Misty Moonlight Card. Then using liquid glue I attached a 1/4″ x 7″ wooden coffee stirrer to one of the short sides. Next I cut 10″ of Misty Moonlight ribbon from the 1/4″ Cotton Ribbon Combo Pack. Using liquid glue I fixed the ribbon 1/4″ from the ends of the coffee stirrer and then glued another one on top sandwiching the ribbon between them. Finally I tucked the ends of the ribbon around the back and glued them in place before trimming off the excess.

With the banner prepared I used liquid glue to mount the layered DSP to the Misty Moonlight card. All that left was for me to attach the die-cut pieces but something wasn’t right. So I cut 5″ of retiring Evening Evergreen Chevron Ribbon and fixed it across the DSP using Tear & Tape Adhesive.

Next I cut some Kraft Paper using the long “rope” die from the Sailing Home Dies. This isn’t actually 5″ long so I ran it through the machine about 2/3″ of the way before reversing it out. I moved the die to the other end of the Kraft Paper and ‘locked’ one end over about 2″ of the area already cut. Now I could run the other end of the die about 2/3 of the way to create an extended piece.

To finish I used liquid glue to add the “rope” along the top of the Chevron Ribbon. Then came the compass image, followed by the lighthouse on Stampin’ Dimensionals. Finally I tucked the sentiment just under the top of the lighthouse and secured it in place with liquid glue.

It’s been a very long time since I last designed a banner project and I very happy with it. What do you think?