We are baaaaaaack!

A slight hiatus and now the team are back with a wonderful challenge this month!  Ribbons and flowers, a sa-weeeeeeeeeeeet combination, is always a winner.  Louise brings you here contribution for you to take inspiration from:

Good Evening to you all. On this fine fresh Spring day the Fantastic Ribbons Design Team will be bringing to you the theme of Flowers this month. 

For the project I had in mind I wanted some light and fluffy flowers and decided to use 

Rhapsodic lace.

A running stitch was placed along one edge of the lace. The stitch was then pulled together to create the scrunched flower. I made two a few (I got a little carried away...) and used them to decorate an over-sized, layered, shaker tag to accompany a thank you pressie. The flowers are just enough to add texture and dimension.

I haven't used lace to make a scrunchie flower before neither have I tried making shaker tags. A friend showed me how and the effect is really lovely.

The twine, lace and button are all from Fantastic Ribbons. 

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you all feel the need to add some ribbon or lace flowers to your projects this month. 

Mothers Day Pretties

Mothers day is always a pretty affair - the team have come up with some very gorgeous projects to share with you that you can use on any girly card and not just for mothers day.

Lets start with Carole's project:

Today is my March Design Team card for Fantastic Ribbons..our theme this month is Mother's Day...

  I chose papers from Tilda and Pink Petticoat..and some fuchsia satin ribbon from Fantastic Ribbons. I wanted the ribbon to be the focal point of the card and tied it in a criss-cross around the front panel, finishing off with a big double bow.

I also decided to make a small box with the left over card, tying it with a selection of ribbons..the fushcia, a pale pink satin and a white heart Grosgrain..all finished with an abundance of bows!

Friends, if you are looking for ribbon take a look at Fantastic Ribbons there a huge choice of gorgeous ribbons, buttons and wash tape.

And now for Louise's project: 

Sunday the 10th March is Mothers Day here in the UK, so the Fantastic Ribbons DT were asked to share their Mothers Day Cards. 

Washi Tape Feathers - have you seen them? 

I first noticed them on Pinterest and decided to make some myself. 

• All you will need is your washi tape and a fine wire.
•  Place a strip of wire down the middle of your washi tape, the length of the tape (and wire) will depend on how long you'd like your feather to be.
• Fold your tape over and down the other side, leaving a little tape at the end with no wire in it.
• Shape your tape by slightly tapering the top and rounding each end.
• Cut into the sides of the tape to create those ruffles.

I look forward to seeing all your projects with your very own handmade washi tape feathers.

 Big or small you can ruffle them all.  

And finally, Bethans project:

The challenge this month at Fantastic Ribbons was to make a mothers day card, sadly I have no one to make one for, but here is a card I made for my lovely Aunt whose birthday was last week.

I used a kraft card base and a selection of wallpapers from the Galerie Memories papers I was given. The main floral image is cut from a border. I added some faux stitching around the outside, some lovely senorita ribbon, then some layered circles and a button with twine. Ribbon and twine are from Fantastic ribbons. The sentiment is a printed one from Kirsty Wiseman, and is punched with a 1.5" circle punch.

I think this would make a lovely mothers day card if you changed the sentiment.

More fun ways to tie....

Marions simple yet stylish ties really do add that lovely finishing touch to your projects, here is what she came up with this month

This month for Fantastic Ribbons we were asked to make BOWS....

So here's what's probably the quickest layout EVER..... With added dimension, thanks to Fantastic Ribbons :) :)



Whoops....sorry the picture's a bit wonky ;)

I quickly made a gathered flower using the red grosgrain and attached it top right of the photo, then I wrapped the lovely Center stitch ribbon around the photo and tied it off in a 'faux' bow then added a multi bow with the bakers twine...


And lastly, I added 'leaves' to the stems of the flowers by way of more 'faux' bows...


And there you have it, a quick and simple layout where the ribbon and paper did all the work !!

Tune in over the next few days for Mothers Day ideas x

Cute way to tie ribbon

Beth has come up with a dinky, cute way to tie ribbon - see what she had to say..........

So this month the challenge for the design team was to do something fantastic with bows! Easy, right?!!

Well I think its fair to say everyone can tie a simple bow (although getting it to sit right on a card isn't always easy), but I decided to do something a little different.
This is a tiered bow.
The great thing about this type of bow is that you can use up all your scrap pieces of ribbon.

I used 3 different types of ribbon, varying lengths and widths, and used some white cotton thread to tie them together, as I was putting an embellishment over them. You could just as easily use another piece of ribbon to tie them together to get a nice neat finish. Think I'll try that on another card!

 Here it is on the card, and I put a length of the main ribbon along the card too.

The card is for our next door neighbours who have just had their first little one, and I cut the name on my Silhouette Portrait. The concentric circle stamps are Waltzingmouse Teeny Trees, and the Special delivery date stamps are from Post Marks PTI, and the Welcome little one is from a Hero Arts Baby set. Ribbon is from, of course, Fantastic Ribbons

Beautiful way to tie ribbon

Carole has come up the the most luscious way to tie ribbon.  This sumptuous card has the team all drooly and ribbon-happy.  Here is what she has to show you:

For this month's Design Team Projects for Fantastic Ribbons we were asked to create projects with bows. I love ribbons and bows on cards, so I chose to make three cards with different bows.
Most of us use ribbons on our cards..some of us all of the time, others less often. I think a bow, either big and bold or small and simple can really give cards that finishing touch and sometimes give them that 'wow!' factor.
I had some lovely red ribbons to work with, so with it being the 'Month of Love', I have made some cards with romance in mind!
For my first card I made a bow by gathering one length of ribbon in folds all meeting in the middle and secured with a brad..this is much like you would make a bow for a gift. This particular ribbon is also wired, which makes it easy to shape as you like.The brad is hidden with a glittered 3D foam heart.

For  second card I used the same ribbon, but this time made a double bow by using two lengths of ribbon and tying them together at the same time. Double bows have to be my favourite style tying a ribbon.

Finally I used a  heart motif ribbon, folded outwards from the middle each side, secured with extra strong tape and finished off in the centre with a button.

So come on, get out those ribbons and start tying...even your little off cuts can be tied in the middle to make a simple little bow!

Tying bows

Lets face it we all struggle from time to time.

Well why not take a gander at this months DT's challanges as they take you through some cool bow ideas.  We know you are hoarding that ribbon JUST for challenges like these.

Louise starts us off with her veeeeeeeeeeeeery pretty bows:

I don't think tying a bow is as easy as I looks and after many attempts over the years I tend to make bows by piecing together lengths of ribbon and building them up. 

I chose ribbon to match the patterned paper and found the bright colours worked well.

The big orange bow has been made from four lengths of ribbons.

 Each length a little shorter than the last. 

The ends of each length have been stuck together to form a circle.

 The circles are flattened and laid on top of each other. 

A narrower contrasting colour ribbon has been placed over the middle to hold the four lengths in place. 

The green bow has been made in the same way with a brad to hold the top two lengths together. 

 

 

used: Orange Grosgrain 22mm and orange Grosgrain 9mm white dot

I really love the same colour combination of the wide and narrow ribbon.

used: kiwi 22mm dot

Go and get prettifying those ribbons, crafters!

New year treat!

Its 2013 and we have a treat in store for you.

Just before christmas, The DT were sent two rolls of ribbon for gift wrap.  Due to one reason and many others, the projects were not posted to the blog.  But they are here now so grab a coffee, sit back and scroll through these pretty awesome projects.  

Note:  Can be applied to gifts throughout the year and not just christmas presents

Marions prettiest gift wrap

Its funny as when I serve people in my shop and the unknowingly pick out a wired ribbon their initial response is "ooo no, I don't want wired" but when I tell them that wired is better than unwired and the benefits of it, they quickly change their minds, you see it's like getting two for the price of one !!! 

 Who can resist that ???

So when i got sent a couple of wired ribbons from Fantastic Ribbons for this months project, I knew I wanted to use it in it's wired form. We were asked to do wrapping, and after beating out tunes and doing some lyrics, I realised that it was wrapping with ribbon...Of Course DUH !!!!! 

I set my mind to work and thought about gift giving and one of the nicest gifts to receive is one thats wrapped beautifully, so much so that it's part of the present.

I took a plain candle and wrapped it in the wide snowflake ribbon, leaving plenty at the top to fold over and make loops with, next I used the 15mm Blue Wired Edge ribbon to, first, tie a bow at the front, then cutting a length, I pulled out one of the wires, took the other end with the wire still attached, hooked it over (so as it doesn't come all the way through) and pulled till I got a gathered flower, popped a diamond in the centre and stuck it to the snowflake ribbon....

I just love the way you can manipulate it and get it to do exactly what YOU want.

And there you have it. a simple gift, perfectly wrapped ready to give...unless you want to keep it for yourself of course ;) 

Louise's gorgeous gift wrap

For me ribbon plays a huge part at Christmas time. There are cakes to edge, decorations to make and presents to tie. Thank you to Fantastic Ribbons who sent me some gorgeous wired ribbon to play with. I have to confess that I've never purchased wired ribbon before and I was a tad worried!

After having a play I'm now a convert and shall be using wired ribbon much more in the future. This stuff is so so easy to manipulate, you can bend it, twist it and just about get the ribbon into any position you fancy.

These few Christmas presents that look much prettier with wired ribbon bows to dress them up.

 

Ribbons used Arabesque-iris-wired-edge and Organza Golden snowflakes .

 

Carol's awesome project

What a nice surprise I had when I logged on here this afternoon...welcome to my two new followers and thank you so much for joining me! This is a late post and a quick one - I've ben gift wrapping all day. The presents for Tom and the close family were all that was left to wrap..well they are now wrapped, but I still need to finish the tags:)

Recently the lovely folks at Fantastic Ribbons sent the design team some gorgeous ribbons to use in a gift wrap project...I really enjoy wrapping and tend to go to town a bit on the wrapping for close friends and family...I had a wonderful time using these beautiful wired ribbons on some of my presents...

I don't often use plain paper, but chose to for this project, to show up the ribbons. I loved making the big blue bow, although it did take a lot of ribbon...hope you like them!

Sorry about the photos...there was just NO light today and I hate to use flash, especially on shiny gold paper!

Bethans glorious gift wrap 

This month we were asked to come up with a wrapping project using some lovely Fantastic Ribbons.
This year I have mainly wrapped my presents in parcel paper, for a lovely kraft look. This means that ribbons and special labels are what makes the gift look so special.
I decided to use a technique I have only ever used on cards before, which is the double sided ruffle!
You need one parcel to wrap, some double sided tape, some ribbon and a little patience. Measure out the length of ribbon you think you will need and add  about half the length again (to allow for the ruffles).
Attach a length of double sided tape down the middle of the parcel and then stick the middle of your ribbon down in the centre. Create ruffles going in both directions, and then wrap the ribbon simply around the back and up the sides. Tie a bow above the centre of the ruffles and voila! The wired ribbon makes this super easy to do and holds its shape really well. I used Arabesque Iris on this present.
Have a Fantastic Christmas!

 

Niki's beautiful project

We were given a task of 'Wrapping' for Fantastic Ribbons. I was going to jazz up some presents but thought I'd think outside the box a bit. My lounge centre-piece looked a bit bare and not very Christmassy at all and I've always hated those candlesticks that my mother-in-law bought us for our wedding so figured I could made them a bit prettier with some gorgeous Fantastic Ribbons ribbon:

Much better!
They turned out really well - I started by wrapping the stems with the blue ribbon and tied the ends in place, then added the large silver and gold bow at the top. Because the ribbon is wired it could be teased into any position, hence the perfect bows!

So instead of wrapped presents, I have wrapped candlesticks that I will be proud of every Christmas for may years to come!

Terries stunning wreath

Here is a door wreath using the fabulous Wired Ribbon!!!
I love how versatile thisribbon is to use.It is fabulous for all those home 

made gifts,
 
Wrapping especially but I chose to use mine on a home made door wreath.
I love how it gives new meaning to my project!!! It is so managable with the added 

wire in the ribbon. It is so easy to use making those bows so easy and beautiful and 
graceful,just perfect for my decor.
 
I used the beautiful Ribbon from here. 

 It is ideal for using on outdoors hail, rain or snow to!

Now I cant wait to hang it on my front door! 

Hels Grungtastic project
Today I am doing my DT for Fantastic Ribbons.  A few weeks ago the lovely chaps at Fantastic Ribbons sent us all some pretty ribbons to play with and make something wrapped... all of the DT designs are HERE on the Fantastic Ribbons blog... check them out... they are all stunning.  So.  Me and wrapping don't exactly have a very good past history.... I would go so far as to say I don't do it very well... so I have kind of been dreading this challenge because everyone has made such lovely stuff and I knew mine would look like AlfieCat had actually done it.... hey, thinking, AlfieCat would probs make a better go of it rofl

Anyways... never one to be beaten and give up, I decided to go with what I know, in a vain attempt to distract you from actually looking at the bow (never my strong point... I blame velcro lol)   I used brown paper to cover the pressie and smudged Vintage Photo DI right around the edges to add some inkiness.  I then got the Distress Markers and inked up some stamps... stamped them onto the wrapping and then heat set them.  Next came the bow making... best say not much about that... ahem... and because the wrapping was so atrocious, I added some little beady flower jobbies... and a Journal Ticket with a sentiment on it... ta-dah! Done!  Not my best make of this year but... it is the taking part right? 

 

 We will be back with more projects soon!