If you’re anything like me with your cardmaking or scrapbooking then on your craft table you’ll have a tin full of bits of ribbon that you continue to fill but never use.  What is it with ribbon that no matter what size it is we just hoard it?  Well I’m on a mission to use up those bits of ribbon in fun and creative ways.  Here’s one idea you might like to try yourself:

I made this card yesterday using bits of coordinating ribbon ends.  I did trim them down a bit and I purposely didn’t want them all the same size as usually we have odd sized bits left over anyway.  I must admit I had some issues with the flat-cut ends fraying so I used a tip I heard a while ago which is to singe the ends of the ribbon.  This worried me a bit because last time I tried to burn around the edges of cardstock I nearly burnt the kitchen down but being slightly brave I gave it another go.  So the trick is to just use the tip of the flame (match, lighter) on the end of the ribbon to give it a very light singe and the flame seals up the end of the ribbon very nicely so that it doesn’t fray.  To adhere the ribbons I just used some SNAIL adhesive on the back of the ribbon and stuck them down on to the chocolate chip cardstock.  Because they still looked like they needed something extra, I added a silver brad to the top of each ribbon.

The images in the centre (and the sentiment) are from the Stampin’ Up! stamp set called “Bird on a Branch”, I must admit although this is a small set it really jumped out at me when I first saw it in the catalogue as it’s really very much my style.  So the branch is stamped in Old Olive onto Very Vanilla cardstock and then the bird was stamped in chocolate chip ink.  It was really easy to position the bird by eyeballing it because you can see the rubber dip in where the bird’s… um… butt, meets it’s tail – so very easy to stamp.  I felt that it would be nice to duplicate the two-toned main image as a backing, so I mounted the main image on a piece of Old Olive cardstock on the left and then chocolate chip on the right.  Then the whole piece was mounted with Stampin’ Dimensionals onto the ribbon base.  The sentiment was stamped in Chocolate chip and I added two little rhinestones to the end of it to emphasise it.

So I hope I’ve inpired you to start using up all those bits of ribbon that you’re collecting.  If you’re a scrapbooker then try using the same idea to make one of your photos stand out as the focal point of your layout.

Here’s a list of products I’ve used to create this card: (all Stampin’ Up! products available for purchase through me at angelasargeant@gmail.com)

Bird on a Branch stamp set
Regal Rose textured cardstock
Old Olive cardstock
Chocolate Chip cardstock
Very Vanilla cardstock
Left over bits of ribbon in Old Olive Very Vanilla and Regal Rose
Silver Brads
Old Olive Inkpad
Chocolate Chip Inkpad
Clear rhinestone brads with the rhinestones pulled off the brads
Snail Adhesive
Stampin’ Dimensionals