FABRIC RIBBON ....

While browsing the pages of Etsy the other day, I came across a picture - it made my heart do a little flip flop !!! It was a picture of spools of ribbon. Not just any ordinary ribbon, but handmade, hand dyed, hand stamped fabric ribbon - I HAD to give it a try !!!!
I'm going to share with you, how I made mine. It is not my original idea, just how I went about creating my own little spools of happiness.

- I dug some 100% cotton calico out of my stash - I had about a yard of it. I gathered 4 bottles of Ritz Liquid Dyes - I went for Halloween themed colors (orange, blue, green and red), but the world is your oyster when it comes to colors, and set about dying my fabric ............ follow the instructions on the back of the Ritz bottle.
- I then cut the fabric into 11/2 " wide strips of fabric - they were as wide as the fabric was - 44" in my case.

- I then sewed a seam all the way down the length of the ribbon. I wanted the edges to look frayed.

- I had a few little Halloween stamps that I wanted to use on my ribbon. I used StazOn Ink to stamp the images onto the fabric - black in this case.

- I stamped the image along the length of my ribbon - no exact measuring, I just eyeballed it !!!!
- Once the ink was dry ( it dries very quickly), I ironed the lengths of ribbon - it seems to heat set the ink.

Now those of you who have read my blog for a while now, know how important packaging is to me. I chose wooden spools (the ones you buy at the craft store).

- I didn't like how shiny and new they looked, so I stained them with wood stain. A word of advice here .... make sure you're spools are completely dry, before winding your ribbon onto them. I even rubbed mine down with a clean rag, once they were dry.

- Another packaging suggestion ...... large, sturdy, decorated tags. Just wind the ribbon around them.

 - The spools needed a bit of jazzing up, so I cut circles from cardstock, and glued a brad (prongs removed) onto the top of them.

 Time to wind the ribbon onto the spools ... easily done !!! I used little gold safety pins to keep the ribbon nice and neatly in place.

I see this ribbon being used in so many different ways ......
- Halloween Scrapbook Pages
- Halloween Cards
- Sewn into Halloween costumes
- As ribbon around gifts

The themes you can make are endless .....Thanksgiving, Christmas, Winter, Summer, Spring ......... and so the list goes on.
This was a fun project to do, and I'd encourage eveyone to give it a try - you won't be disappointed!!!!