Silhouette Thank You Garland

Recently, my sister Stephanie was shocked by three friends with a surprise outdoor movie birthday party.  She loved it so much and had such a great time that she wanted to surprise them with a thank you gift. She thought that sending a package with a garland that spells out the entire Golden Girls theme song would be funny and a great way of saying thanks to some pretty amazing friends.

Here is what she used:

A Silhouette machine

Gold poster board

Fine gold glitter card stock

Fishing line (to hide the string holding it all together).

The font she chose was called:

Full Moon Mars

Here is how she made it:

1. She chose the song she wanted.  It could have been a quote, poem, etc.  We think choosing something fun and playful is best for this project. Then, she chose a font that would be thick enough that she could tape the back of the letters onto her string.

2. Using the Silhouette software, she wrote out the quote on the size of paper she was using.

HINT: Stephanie used gold poster board because it was way cheaper than buying individual sheets of 12×12 gold paper. Then, she just cut it down to 12×12 to run in the Silhouette. 

Stephanie was making three garlands and, since she knew she wanted a mix of the shiny gold and the glitter gold, she cut out two sets on the gold poster board and one set on fine glitter card stock. Finally, she mixed and matched for the final garlands.

3. Hit cut! She used the card stock setting for both papers in this project.

4. Next, to put it all together, Stephanie laid fishing line out on the floor and taped the line down on each end so it wouldn’t move.  She laid all three garlands out and once, mixing the glittered & shiny letters randomly.

5. She taped all of the letters on with bright pink tape on the back.

6. Next, to put it in the boxes to mail, Stephanie either wrapped them around a cardboard tube so they didn’t tangled or accordion-folded each letter. Folding it accordion style takes time, but it’s less time than having to untangle it all!

Stephanie bought the adorable boxes from IKEA and the “pull-me” tag is from Martha Stewart.

What do you think? Have you ever gotten a surprise in the mail like this? Would you love it?  And isn’t Stephanie a creative genius?