Five Ways to Use up Your Ribbon Stash

Welcome to Make It Monday!

You may be coming from Karen’s site where she is sharing a couple of her recent creative team layouts! At the end of this post there will be another link so if you missed Karen’s post you can circle through all the links today and get back to hers. We’ve got the largest circle we’ve had yet for 2016. I think we are starting to get back into the blogging groove again. Yay!!

Enjoy all the inspiration!

Today I am talking ribbon. How to use up ribbon to be precise.

I love ribbon. I think it’s pretty. But it tends to stay all pretty and rolled up on the spool, not used on my projects. Time to try and change that!

I’ve got five ideas to share with you today plus a bonus sixth one that comes with a video. Shall we take a look?

1. As Embellishment

I don’t think I’ve ever shared this layout with you guys before. It was published in the April 2013 edition of Scrapbook News and Review Magazine – an online magazine that has since stopped publications. This is a great example of using ribbon as an accent or embellishment.

At the top of the layout there is a shorter piece of blue ric rac in the cluster. It extends that cluster over the top of the photo and leads the eye to the title and journaling box. For continuity the same ribbon is repeated at the bottom as a grounding line for the photos.

2. Tie a Bow

Probably the easiest and most common way of using ribbon on a card or layout is to tie it around the card in a pretty bow.

3. Trace a Shape

While the first two projects never seem to have been featured on my blog before, this one was. Back in the day when I made art journal pages and we had a regular monthly feature on them over at Practical Scrappers. Art journaling never really stuck with me. Guess I’m too impatient – all that paint drying time!

Anyway, here I used some sweater trim ribbon from Stampin’ Up to draw out a leaf shape on my page. You could totally do this with a scrapbook layout, in fact, I think it would look awesome on a Fall themed page!

4. String it Up!

There are endless ways to use ribbon, string, and twine to make banners and garland. This was another project I made for Practical Scrappers where we were all finding ways to use up our stash. My stash in this case wasn’t the ribbon but the paper and an entire package of Valentine themed chipboard die cuts!

To make something like this you can either sew each shape to the ribbon, or, as I did, staple them and then add decoration on top to hide the staples. So much easier than sewing!

5. Twist it Up

My last tip is to create embellishments from your ribbon. It’s super easy to create little rolled ribbon flower details like the ones on this layout. In fact, I filmed a video where I show you how to make one from a scrap of fabric – same technique applies to ribbon.

And that brings us to our Bonus Technique!

6. Use it in place of paper strips on a layout.

Recently I was reminded that Glitter Girl is back filming weekly videos (I know, I know, I was jumping up and down like that too!) After watching her new 2016 episodes I got all nostalgic and decided to watch some of Mild Mannered Shimelle Lain’s Sketch to Scrapbook videos too. And that’s when the magic happened!

This sketch.

Those strips could be ribbon, no? Shimelle uses washi tape but I instantly thought of this post and wanted to try it out with ribbon.

So I did. And I filmed it.

If you’re curious to watch Shimelle’s layout come together then click on over to YouTube and take a peek. I’m pretty happy with mine and did end up moving that grey button. Here’s the final layout.

Five fewer pieces of ribbon in my stash make me a happy camper!

And some detail shots.

It’s a bad photo, I admit it, but I wanted to show you how I fixed a couple of things that were bugging me. This bit of yellow label was originally attached to the pink and blue ones that I used for my journaling but I had cut it off and discarded it as I couldn’t make the yellow work with the rest of my journaling space. When I was editing the video I realized that I’d forgotten to write the date on the layout and also where we were (which I’d already forgotten the name of – thank you Google!) I dug this scrap out of the recycling bin and voila! Problem solved. Now I had somewhere more logical to put that little button and with the addition of another washi sticker from the Pink Paislee pack, I was done.

Now it’s your turn. Share with me your favourite way to use ribbon on my Facebook Page.

Then head on over to Kristie’s site where she’s showcasing a favourite photo and upcycling. Who says upcycle projects can’t be quick and easy?

Have a great Monday everyone!