farewell wishes for a dear, dear friend

My banner.

One of my most cherished friends is moving to Switzerland today - Basel, Switzerland to be exact. I am excited for her and the adventures she will have, especially after (recently) getting a taste of Europe myself - boy, is it pretty out there. We had a going away party for her this past Saturday at the home of another cherished friend, and served her favorite food and decorated the house in Swiss decor. One of my tasks was crafting a banner. I spent some time researching bon voyage party ideas, but making a banner that read "Bon Voyage" seemed silly for someone that was moving to a Swiss German-speaking land. So, I googled bon voyage in Swiss German and found that the term "Gueti Riese" encompasses three endearing farewell wishes - Godspeed, Bon Voyage, and Have a Good Trip. Perfect!

As you may know, cutting is not one of my strong points, so I wanted to make sure I found something that would produce results that looked both quality and heartfelt. All too often me + scissors = one big mess. To my surprise and delight I found a free template online. Score. A website called Beauty and Bedlam provides a link not only to letters, but blank banner panels, hearts, and ampersands as well. It was a lifesaver - isn't life delicious. I decided to print the letters on white paper in black ink and mount them on a circle of patterned scrapbook paper that was half an inch larger in diameter. I went with the triangle panels and used patterned scrapbook paper for those too, mix-matching patterns between the two different shapes. I chose to use patterns that were mostly black and red because those are the colors of Basel. If you need to make a banner, use this template. You can make it say whatever you need and it came out looking quite nice. Click here for the template.