Memorial Day/Canada Day Banner

We hope that you've been enjoying the Memorial Day themed projects that our Design Team have been sharing here on the blog.

We know that many of our readers are not all from the United States and one of our design team members is from Canada. So for our Canadian friends we're pretty sure that you'll love this post today and perhaps you'll be inspired to create one of your own!!

Laura Whitaker

Hello crafty people!

It's Laura here with you today sharing a fun craft in honour of Memorial Day.  Actually, in Canada where I am, we celebrate Memorial Day in conjunction with Canada Day on July 1st.  But I am all too happy to get a jump start on the celebrations!  Well sort of, Canada Day is also my birthday and this year a big one - so I am not overly anxious for that! *wink, wink*  Anyway, let me share my project with you.

I decided to create a banner to show my Memorial Day / Canada Day spirit!  I am hoping to be able to use it at a party, hint hint to my family! Ha!


The Imaginisce DT was lucky enough to receive a Banner Punch board by We R Memory Keepers, courtesy of our joint mother company, American Crafts.    I finally had an opportunity to open mine up and boy all I can say is "what took me so long?"!  I think you all know how much of  a Silhouette Cameo fan I am and I have used the software to create banners on numerous occasions but this punch board tool is even easier and quicker than the Silhouette!!  And that my friends is a big deal!

I had the punch board opened up and 9 banner pieces cut out in minutes!  You can find a video tutorial here, but you won't need it ha!

I used papers and embellishments from the Par-r-rty Me Hearty collection because of the great red colour in the papers both in this subtle pattern and the pretty red and white stripe.

This black pattern is the B side of the red and white striped paper and these little pieces shown here were off cuts from these striped banner pieces,  I flipped them over and they made the perfect adornment to the top of my banner. Which meant that I had little to no waste.

I did use my Silhouette to die cut a couple of red Maple Leafs to embellish some of my banner pieces.  I made them large enough to spread over two pieces after cutting them in half. I love the look!

I cut one red banner piece to add a sentiment to the centre of my banner.  The alphas are from the Thicker set that coordinates with the Par-r-rty Me Hearty collection, too.

I didn't have quite enough of some of the letters in white, as I needed multiple "a's" and a couple of some other letters, so I grabbed some white craft paint and got busy painting out the letters that I needed.

I also painted the white letters that I was using, I knew the paint would add texture to the teal coloured letters and I wanted all of the alphas to match.  The paint went on quick and easy and dried really fast.

There is a pretty blue paper in this collection too, so US friends you could easily swap out the red leaves for blue stars to create your own Memorial Day banner!

I adorned the two outer corners with puffy gems in red and white, also from the Par-r-rty Me Hearty collection!  The most challenging thing about this project was photographing it, because of its length.

Supply List; Imaginisce Par-r-rty Me Hearty patterned papers, puffy stickers and Thickers; We R Memory Keepers Banner Punch Board; DecorArt white paint; Red Heart crochet thread.

Thanks so much for visiting today!