TEACHING Tuesday - November 18/08

Happy TUESDAY!!

Today we have an awesome tutorial from our sister Jeanie!! She gives us some great ways to use ribbon!


Who doesn’t have ribbons? These pretty little things are so ubiquitous and come in a wide variety of texture, color and designs – taffeta, grosgrain, organza, chiffon, velvet, the list is endless. But most of all, they are very affordable. Now, I don’t claim to be a ribbon connoisseur, but I do have a few tricks that I would like to share with you. A disclaimer, please excuse the lighting in these photos, I was trying to get them before I went to work and the day light in the room wasn’t very good.

1.) Ribbon Flowers
I am a flower-crazed-girl, almost 90% of my layouts have flowers and I struggle with a layout that has no flowers. It’s as if a layout isn’t complete without flowers. Although there are a lot of available choices offered by manufacturers, sometimes, the streak to be different strikes us and we want to create ones that are so uniquely ours. Here are a few quick steps to create that one-of-a-kind flower.You will need your basic sewing kit, a ribbon (I usually work with 4-inch ones) and tiny trinkets e.g. gonchos, pearls, gemstones, etc for your flower center.


b. Make a basic running stitch along the edge of your ribbon. While doing this, gather the sewn ribbon at the end of your thread.

c. Do this until you come to the end. Then, gather the ribbon as closely as you can and sew the ends of the ribbon to form a circle.

d. Select a trinket for your flower center. I chose this blue gem from my craft supply which conveniently enough has holes at both ends that I can sew through.

e. Attach the flower center to your gathered circle ribbon (I am not sure if this is the way to describe it, but you know what I mean). If you can’t sew through the flower center, you can opt to use glue or other adhesives. I have yet to try this one though.

f. Close off your sewing nicely and voila! You have your own unique flowers. You can change the colors, the texture of the ribbon (I’ve only worked with velvet) and the flower center (maybe you can use pearls instead of gems). For me, I’ve been making a couple of these prototypes for my big wedding next year – not sure how to use them just yet. I am not sure if I can get enough ribbons and gems to make a hundred more of these and when I do, I’m not sure if I can stand to make that much. Let’s see, I’ll let you know in a year.

Thanks so much Jeanie!! Stay tuned for a couple more ribbon ideas from Jeanie later in the week!!