I saw our new Ho Ho Ho On Board (with the messy part—glitter—already done!) and fell in love. I’m a holiday gal and a bling gal, so this product really caught my eye, and I couldn’t resist sharing a couple of ideas with you.

What I liked about this is that it’s really affordable. You can make three banners for under $5 each, and give them away as holiday gifts. (Give the bigger banner to your favorite person, just don’t let the other two gift recipients know. . .smile!)

The key to keeping this affordable is using what you have laying around. . . ribbons and Designer Series papers, different accessories, and stamp sets. Don’t feel like you have to go out and buy anything besides the On Board banner itself.

You know I don’t do instructions, but I did include a close-up photo of each of the letters in the larger banner, so you don’t really need instructions for those. I loved the garland though, and figured you might need a few tips on that.

You just cut a strip of card stock, fold it in half, and run it about three-quarters through the crimper (you want to keep one edge uncrimped so the Sticky Strip sticks to it better). Then you adhere a strip of Sticky Strip (a lot of strips there, huh?) along the edge, and cut the other edge about every quarter inch or so. Next take the ribbon that you’re going to hang the banner from and start twisting the card stock around it, tightly and close together. Finally fray the card stock edges a big to create the garland look.

I thought these looked a lot like pine boughs—if you did them in green, I bet you could barely tell the difference between these and the real thing!

I know the larger banner will take a little bit of time, but it's well worth the time because this is a home decor item that you (or whomever you give it to) will use year after year after year. So it's time and effort well spent!

The smaller banner literally took me minutes to make—it came together so quickly and easily. The pre-adhered (is that a word?) glitter really makes it a snap. I just added some DSP backgrounds and die cut  card stock (the Stampin’ Up! Scallop Square), a few hand-cut accents, and I was done. It was great!

As a bonus, I also wanted to share the card we’re sending out this year to the vendors we work with. It uses the same stamp set as the larger banner, so I wanted to show how you can use one set for several different projects. It’s all about versatility, you know.

So that’s it for now. I wanted to post this before tonight, because I’m heading off to New Moon with a huge group of friends, family, and even a few people I don’t know. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow. . . .