One of my goals for making this card was to try layering different patterns of paper. I love patterned paper, but I also find it a bit intimidating trying to match different designs and colors. Most of these papers came out of a single Simply Scrappin’ kit (long retired), so that made it a little bit easier.
I also had in the back of my mind that I wanted to use pennants, because I think they lend well to layering different patterns. But I always have a problem with cutting the ends of pennants evenly. When I scrap, I usually eyeball a lot of things – don’t bother getting out the ruler to line up my layers for instance, or to center items on a card or a page. If things don’t quite line up, well, that just adds the personal touch that says “I made this”. But ( I feel like I’ve written a lot of “buts” on this page), that doesn’t cut it for pennants. Whenever I’ve tried to eyeball the angle or the length of the cut-out on the bottom of a pennant, one of the pointy ends always ends up looking longer, or sharper or deeper than the other. And the end result is just plain wonky.
So I came up with this method for cutting pennants. I’m still eyeballing a little, but it ends up a lot more even.
Pennant Tutorial
- Cut a strip of patterned paper the width of your pennant. You probably want your paper strip to be longer than you want your pennant to be, so you have a little room to play with.
- Measure the width – this strip is 1 1/4
- Using your paper-cutter, make a cut a little way up the middle of your paper strip. One half of 1 1/4 is 5/8, so that is where I made my cut. Don’t cut too far – just however deep you want the end of your pennant to be.
- Use scissors to trim from one corner to the top of the cut.
- Then do the other side. That’s it, you are done.