My Banner Manifesto

It's nearly the weekend, so let's put the flags out!

Or, we could talk about banners?

Banners have been big for a bit now in the scrapbooking world. So big, maybe they're turning a corner (a banner going round a corner: I'd have to follow that one, wouldn't you?) and going small again. But I'm not ready to bid banners goodbye and I'm not saying farewell to flags. Noooo way..

Last time I banner-ed big, someone said but I just don't get banners

Well, let's start with the obvious.

- if you want to celebrate. A few flags on a page gives your viewers a good visual clue. Before they read a word of journaling they can see that this is a page about something fun. In fact, you might not even need a lot of journaling if you have broken out the bunting.

But, you can be more subtle than that. You can use banners to

- add an extra layer of meaningI have a postage stamp punch which I used to make a banner of stamps. It's on a page about me in the garden as a little girl (amongst other things), and the garden was my dad's big thing. His other love was collecting postage stamps and so I'm reminded of that. You could almost say that I'd flagged it up..

- add colour. If you are following that old design principle of gallon, pint, quart, maybe you're looking for a little touch of a third colour? There you go..

-  add dimension. Pop dot your banner, let it fly high and you've added depth to your page.

- add movement

- repeat a shape you have somewhere else in your design

- use it as a home for other elements: a title or extra embellishments. They will be well grounded if you put  them on top of the banner..even if that does mean they are flying high..

...alright, maybe that's enough with the bunting stuff. But what I really want to say is this - if you don't get banners, then don't even try. Think of them as a design device instead. Then fly the flag. It is Friday, after all...

Now, does a stamp-y banner count as a contribution to Julie Kirk's lovely Going Postal series? It might be pushing a postal point to say yes - but at least it has given me a chance to give her a shout out! She has a beautiful postal Pinterest pinboard right here and lots of stampin' blog stuff going on right here. Go on, drop her a line..