Ribbon bunting

I made some ribbon bunting to see if i like it for the wedding, maybe to hang behind the cake table - marquee walls can be so white! Its just 5(ish)cm strips of coloured jersey lightly knotted onto garden twine. So easy to do and i love the final effect. Its pretty heavy so i'll have to be careful how i hang it. Could make it with satin ribbon instead maybe, then it would be lighter...

 

Anyway, its a work in progress but loving the progress so far :)

Ribbon Organising

So far ive organised my embroidery wool, my sewing threads and my knitting wool so now its time to tackle the ribbons!
Id added a shelf to the craft room and decided to add some rails underneath it to make some vertical, hanging storage areas which could work perfectly for ribbons. I just used kitchen rails and hooks from Ikea.
A while ago i organised my ribbons onto little cardboard spools which worked for a while but they ended up shoved in a bag together which made it hard to find what i wanted
So after finding this post from Maime Jane's via Pinterest I decided to scale that up and make larger spools which i could hang from the rail

I (obviously!) colour coordinated my ribbons, wound them onto the simple card spool shapes and secured the ribbon with a bit of tape. I then used net curtain clips to hang them from the rail.


I also had some ribbons on spools which i didnt want to unwind so i cut a short length of doweling, threaded on the spools and then hung it between two hooks

I love how this turned out, its simple but so pretty and i can see exactly what i have without having to unpack a whole bag!

Add Ribbon Handles to Gift Bags

 

I saw this post about DIY gift bags at Thrify Fun ages ago and wanted to make my own at Christmas but didnt have time, but a recent glut of birthdays and other events meant i needed a few nice gift bags so i finally did it, well part of it... I didnt make the bags myself, i bought cheap ones and then changed the handles for pretty ribbon ones, but i think it works really well, no chance of anyone else having the same wrapping as you too!

Ribbon hanging loops for towels

I always thought everyone added hanging loops to their towels but apparently not! I cant take responsibility for the idea, i copied it from my sister but we've both done this for years so i thought i'd share.

I love it when a towel comes with a built in hook but they rarely do these days so i always add one myself.

Its just a small lenght of ribbon folded over and sewn in place. Pin it first to make sure its in the right place.

Then sew backwards and forwards over the ribbon a few times as it'll need to be strong. You can do this by hand, just make sure its nice and secure

The ribbon ends will fray, especially after youve washed it a few times. You can seal the end with nail varnish but i never bother, it is just a towel after all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ribbon spools

I'm not brilliant at organising and im always envious when i see people with their amazing organised and colour coordinated crafting supplies (love this blog but it does make me feel a touch inadequate!) But when i saw this really easy spool template for storing your ribbons or threads then i knew i could at least manage that! I do despair slightly when i look at my ribbon stash, it looks like the Marley Cat's had a field day in there, so this was ideal for me. I cut out a variety of sizes of cardboard spool from some A4 kraft card i bought form ebay. Wrapped the ribbon round and secured them with a pin - done! Super easy and really effective :)

Makes i like this week 13-Mar-12

Amazing quilts by Kate Findlay based on the large Hadron Collider over at Craftzine

Using Tic Tac boxes to organise ribbon at Craft Magazine

Papercut Bircages at A Little Hut

Cookie cutter pin cushions at Country Living

Knitted Birthday Cards

Another new make of the year :) I often make these knitted birthday present cards for my friends so i thought i'd make a nice new tonal set of five to sell on etsy. Theyre just little knitted squares, i use whatever wool is left over in my stash, which i glue ribbon too and then stick onto bought card blanks. I get these white card blanks from hobby craft. I used to attach a dymo embossed happy birthday to the cards but my dymo has broken (bad times) so i found a dymo font online and printed it onto glossy photo paper, cut it out and stuck the wording to the card. Done! Really easy but very cute i think.

I also loved how all the little squares looked stacked up next to each other, a little knitted rainbow!

The card set are available to buy in my shop on etsy, other combinations to follow hopefully, or message me if you intersted in anything specific.

My sisters birthday presents!

Sunday was my lovely big sisters birthday, it sucks having a birthday so soon after Christmas and she lives on the other side if the world to me in Melbourne so I always try and make a lot of effort with her presents. Normally what I buy/make is restricted by size and weight or I end up spending a fortune on postage! But this year our mum is going to visit so I can send some stuff with her
This year I posted her this gorgeous owl calendar that I downloaded and printed from My Owl Barn and I bought the cute union jack peg magnets from eBay (I like to remind her she's British on a regular basis!)

With the owl calendar I sent her this recipe for gingerbread bears with a cute little bear cutter (sorry for the terrible photo, which actually has a deer cutter instead of a bear as posted this before I had a chance to take a photo and had to recreate it at home later!)

I just printed the recipe (customised from this recipe) on thick card, punched some heart shaped holes in the bottom and tied the bear cutter with cute orange ribbon. Hopefully she'll make some biscuits and send me photos so I can post them on here

I've also sent her (via our mums suitcase) a framed papercut which I forgot to photo! (Hopefully my mum or sister will send me a picture of that too!). I made it on my Make Lounge paper cut course, which was excellent, and is of a moustache with 'monsieur' cut out underneath!
And finally this beautiful airmail notecard set from Present and Correct which I thought was perfect since we have such a long distance relationship!



Happy birthday sis xx love you lots xxx