Freedom!

Hi my crafty friends, Brenda here from Friends Craftin with Friends.  We were asked to make something patriotic in honor of our soldiers and veterans this week at Sweet Sassy Diva.  I have two sons that serve in the Army, one is full time Army and has deployed 5 times thus far and one son that was in the Army Reserves who just came home from Afghan in Dec. of 2011 so this was an easy one for me. 

I decided to make a 9" rosette.  I started out picking out my papers.  One of which I wish I hadn't chosen but too late now! lol You will need three 12 x 12 papers. 

Next you need to cut your papers down to 9.5" x 12". I scored on the 12" side every 1.5" on each paper.   I then punched a border on each 12" side.  You don't have to do this if you don't want to. This is a good time to ink the edges of your paper if you wish.  I chose to ink with Tim Holtz Black Walnut distress ink. 

Next you want to fold your paper mountain/valley folds.  Re-inforce your fold with your bone folder.  Then you are going to fold each one in half and re-inforce that fold too.

Now you are going to glue the fold onto itself with either wet glue-like Scotch Quick Dry, hot glue or score/red liner tape.  I used hot glue. This is what it will look like once glue onto itself.

After you have all three papers folded and glue onto themselves you are going to glue them all together. Continue to glue all three together to get your rosette form. Here all three are glue together, I just need to glue those last two sides together and I will have my rosette form.

Next I cut 3 stars.  One in Blue at 8", White at 6" and Red at 4" using George and Basic Shapes.  Score each point of the star like this:

When you have all the scoring done your star should look like this:

Now you are ready to fold your star to make it a 3D "barn" star.  The star points are folded mountain style while the other line is folded valley style.  Here is what your star should look like and you can now ink it.  I did with the Black Walnut distress ink.

Next I cut and inked my yellow ribbon.  I pop dotted the pieced to give it more depth.  I did the same with the banner, I cut it in white with the layers and pop dotted the layers up as well as inked with the Black Walnut distress ink.  I cut out the letter for FREEDOM using Don Juan in black.  Added them to my banner.  This is what the end product looks like.  I am thinking of adding "isn't free" to the ribbon tales, if I do I will use the same font as I used for "freedom".  I stacked my stars together and glued them to a piece of twine which also is glued to the rosette.

I re-inforced my holes for my hanger.  I didn't want it to rip out after only hanging for a while. 

 I hope this inspires you to make something patriotic in honor of our veterans and soldiers.  I think I will give this to my DIL to hang in her home, after all she deserves it for holding down the fort while DS is deployed all the time.  Crafty hugs to all....Brenda