Day 6 - Ribbon Chains
06/12/2011
As a child I remember making paper chains with my mum and sisters, I used to hate the job of licking the sticky ends of the paper. But being big sis I used to find ways of making Rachie do the licking. It is amazing what you can achieve with an offer of a few chocolate coins!! What is amazing is that it is still working to this day with Sam and Mollie - brilliant.
No bribery needed with these ribbon chains - as licking is not required!
Perfect chains every time. Not much fun making chains on your own so I press ganged Sydney and Sam into helping me.
We had perfect team work going - I cut the ribbons into lengths............
..........................Sam threaded the ribbon through each other to make the chains.....................
................and Sydney did the stapling. We stapled ours, we borrowed uncle T's special style stapler, but you could use sticky dots or double sided tape. These are very quick to make and we had great fun, which is what Christmas is all about! Ooooh and no mess. I think the three of us could have gone on for ever, but we ran out of staples, and uncle T said he had no more...........bar humbug uncle T.
We used the cheap ribbon from our Bargain rolls here, but any ribbon can be used, even scraps to make a truly jumbled effect.
Claire has gone for a classic look with her cards for the challenge goodies.
Oooh I do think this is super Claire, so simple and elegant. I got excited yesterday - I received my first Christmas card...........hand made of course. Thank you Debbie.
Divine Claire, the little green button in the snowflakes sets it off beautifully.
Oooh what a little sweetie, he is adorable Claire. My angel hair has hidden the ribbon, which is just as well because we are sold out of this design!
Thank you Claire for your wonderful creations. We hope Claire's designs or our ribbon chains have inspired you to get crafting this Christmas.
Yesterdays upgrade seems to have all gone to plan, apart for the notification emails, they were a bit strange yesterday - sorry. The formatting had changed and we had not realised, I am hoping todays will look like it used to. I love the new changes that happen with upgrades, but I could do without the headache of the learning curve!
Have a great day, I have to be a grown up today off to see the accountant!
Day 5 - Christmas Tree
05/12/2011
Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree................ this one is tiny!
Do you remember my ribbon carnation video I made back in the summer, you can find the link in the side bar - I can not believe it, I have had over 107000 hits! wooopeee!
Sorry I will get back on track, the reason for the carnation mention is that the tree is made the same way, just gathering the ribbon using the wire. But instead of making it form a circle and sewing in place, I have wrapped it around a cone and used small pins to hold it.
WARNING - it does use a lot of ribbon, this tree stands about 18cm high and took 15mtrs of 15mm ribbon - but I think it is super. I had it sat by the telly last night and decided it needed some decorations. I used a single gold star here, gold seed beads here and a few red buttons from our Christmas Berry Button Box here all simply held in place with pins. The first one I made I left the cone white, but found I did not like the look, so used a gold promarker to colour the cone for this tree - much better.
Still need a little bit more inspiration then have a look at our Challenge goodies.
Twinkle has made this truly rustic effect card. In all the years (I missed our 3rd bloganniversary on 1st november) of running the blog I have never created something with ribbon weaving, it is so easy and looks wicked. I love the use of the garden twine, super idea.
A Snow Wand - I think this has been used further up the country last night, but no Snow here in Dorset. Twinkle this is a really fun idea, I can just picture the children running around waving their snow wands. Just imagine if it snowed that night - awesome.
You certainly left us comments this week, 82 I believe - thank you, thank you. Your comments are truly special to us and we have all enjoyed reading them. Great to hear from those that we thought no longer visited, and even more pleased to know that you have been popping on for a quick read.
We have three Special Christmas Advent vouchers to be won. Our "Bingo" bag is a bursting this week, and I have double checked that all 82 numbers are there. Mollie gave the bag a mega shake up for me. Mollie needed help so asked her friend George and the numbers they pulled out were.........................
Number 24 = Karen Jones
These are lovely, Well done Ali you're a star!......and chance to win a voucher that's just brilliant, Thank You.xx
Happy Weekend Everyone.
Number 31 = Karen vdP
These flower lights really are a fantastic idea - so pretty and original. I loved the advent calendar also, but too late for me to try. I am using silk ribbon from you at the moment to embroider white ponsettia on a jumper (actually, they look quite like snow flakes)! - I am excited about the results. Just hope original is not verging on weird!
Thanks for the generous voucher freebies this Christmas.
Karen vdP
Number 52 = Ali Sherman
Your poinsettia lights are beautiful. Your Christmas table is going to look amazing.
I'm so glad you've found the time and energy to keep the blog going. There are so many wonderful blogs but I have to admit this is the only one that I always visit, and read every single post. I'm not always able to comment though.
For anyone who keeps trying to comment but find it vanishes please email Ali, the same thing happened to me. I thought it was a problem my end and left it for ages before emailing Ali, and she didn't bite!! Now my comments never disappear.
Have a good weekend all
Ali xx
Woooohooo girls you each have £20 to spend in our store. All we need are emails to craftyribbons@gmail.com and we will tell you how to spend your vouchers. Please do keep following us this week, we have super projects and ideas to share, more challenge goodies as well as the Friday FREEBIE.
Just a little bit of info, we have today upgraded the software we use for the blog, you may have noticed it was off line for about an hour. We hope the update might help with the little problem we have with our spam filters - so fingers crossed. Any problems just email me and I will try and help.
Hope you are well and warm, has snow reached you yet?
Day 4 - Scent of Christmas
04/12/2011
I just adore the aromas of Christmas, cinnamon, apple, spices and have been trying to think of a way I could do this with ribbon. A "Bingo" moment hit me while doing the food shopping yesterday. We were having lunch in the supermarket cafe and they had decorated their Christmas trees with bundles of cinnamon sticks - oooh I can do that and more......
I filled our trolley with apples and oranges, a tub of bay leaves and some cinamon sticks. Sadly Tony has got to the stage where he no longer asks what I am up to, and just joins in searching for the new items on our list!
How many doors do you have in your house? Why? Because you can make these....................
Oooooh they smell divine and just like Christmas.
I have never dried apples and oranges before, but a quick visit to you tube and I had the gist of it. Slice the fruit and bake in a low oven for a long time.
I started to make my door hangers this morning, using a big needle and some red and white gingham here, (gingham just shouts christmas) I simply threaded everything onto the ribbon. The bay leaves can tear very easily so be careful with those. I love the way the apples have curled. Thinking about it I could have dried a few limes, next time.
I added a bell at the bottom here, just to get thet sort of jingle bell Christmas is coming sound when the doors are opened effect! I knotted both ends to secure all the goodies in place, then added a few gingham bows to the top and a hanging loop to go over the door handles. The red sugared ball things you can see came from my stash, I got them from Hobbycraft in the sale. I thought they went perfectly with the red gingham ribbon.
That's it, I am off to make a few more.
Have a fab Sunday.
Day 3 - Sugar Tree Decorations
03/12/2011
Before I start on todays little idea I would just like to say "thanks". Your comments yesterday have really made me feel it is all worthwhile. I absolutely adore the blog, the projects, the challenges, the Friday FREEBIES, it is so part of me and what Crafty Ribbons is all about. But when other factors are competing for your time, the stress of juggling everything sometimes gets too much. We are a small team, so everyones input is important - so when you are faced with make a project and write a blog post or pack and despatch orders you want to cry!!! So your comments made me feel that those early mornings typing away on the computer while everyone was in snoooze land was worth the extra effort. Thankfully you can change the time of the posts, I did get caught out on one facebook post I made at some ridiculous o'clock!!!
Christmas...............crafting..............children.........
Put that all together and you get Christmas Crafting with Mollie!
Mollie made these. Yes she did.
Mollie is making the hole in the heart to hang it up.
What are they? The are sugar decorations. Mix a cup of sugar, a spoonful of glitter (ummm rather more if you let Mollie measure it out!) and a little water. Mix it all together until it sticks. You want the sugar to become sticky but not over wet that you can see the water, if this happens just add more sugar.
Work on a sheet of tinfoil and spoon some mixture into cookie cutters. Mollie used a heart and a circle cutter. Press the mixture down with a small spoon, or Mollie used her fingers! Once it is all firmly pressed down, make a small hole so you can hang it. You can see Mollie is using a kebab stick, anything can be used, cocktail stick or even a pencil. Carefully remove the cutter from the sugar mixture and allow to dry overnight.
I think Mollie and I were making too much noise and giggling because all the girls came round to see what we were doing in the canteen. Mollie's simple reply was "crafting".
This morning the decorations were rock hard and ready to hang on the tree. Mollie had finished a couple of the decorations with an extra splash of glitter, so I decided to use our Almost Thread ribbon here so not to detract from the glitter!!
I really had fun yesterday making these with Mollie, we did not create too much mess, we were both a little bit sticky, but that soon washed off.
Thanks Mollie.
Day 2 - and Friday FREEBIE
02/12/2011
I was pleased to read last night that you were hoping I would do a ribbon Advent again this year. I hope you enjoy what I make and can use the ideas or the inspiration within your own crafting. And thanks for your Robin comments, Tony can be very cruel sometimes!
For todays little idea, I have been working on this for a while, when ever I saw a pack of fairy lights, lit up on display, I would go and feel the bulbs. Tony was begining to find this a little weird! But all I was doing was seeing how hot the bulbs got! Why? Because of these..........
Poinsettia Fairy lights - made from ribbon.
My lights are battery powered and give off no heat, just perfect. I have shown you how to make these poinsettia flowers before to make napkin rings here. The only difference is I used the whole width of the ribbon and did not cut it in half. I used the NEW Sheer Flocked Swirl Christmas ribbon here. I wanted to use sheer ribbon so the light from the bulbs would shine through and give a magical glow. I think it has worked!
The back of the poinsettia was rather messy so I simply cut a strip of red felt and wrapped it around the ends of the ribbon and secured with a few stitches. I managed five flowers last night and will make a few more every evening and it will be ready for our Christmas table fingers crossed.
We all like to make Christmas special for everyone, it is that time of year. So we would like to thank all our wonderful blog readers that have supported us throughout the year. You take time to leave us comments, I am not sure you will understand how important those comments can be. I came under a lot of strain putting our Christmas collection together back in the summer and I was verging on reducing the number of blog posts I made and sort of mothballing the blog for a while. The interest in the Friday FREEBIES had wained and we were getting fewer comments every week.
It was not until I looked at our stats that I realised how many people DID visit on a daily basis, and to be honest I had rather a shock - WOW. There was definitely no lack of interest (unless it is only our competitors that come and visit!), or just maybe simply lack of time.
OK - so loads and loads of you may not have time to comment, but for those that do then we have a special Friday FREEBIE this week. NOT 1....... NOT 2........BUT 3 vouchers
£20 gift voucher for 3 lucky blog commentors this week.
Never left a comment before, but always come for a read? Not sure what to do or how to leave a comment?
At the bottom of todays post just below the blue Ali you will see a box like this
Click on this comment link.
A box will open that looks like this
Fill in your details, do not worry no one will see your email address, leave a comment and press the save comment.
In a perfect world this would work fine, BUT we get a lot of spam (horrid and weird comments) that we have to filter out, so our spam filters are turned up high. The computer may treat your comment as a spam comment and not publish it. When you save your comment it will appear on your screen - yes you can see it? Now press your refresh button, normally looks like two arrows going around in a circle. Is your comment still on the screeen? Yes great it worked! No? - Oh dear sorry it has been eaten by our spam filter. Send me a email with your comment to craftyribbons@gmail.com and I will add it for you. Once I have entered your email address into the computer, it will allow you to leave further comments without any problems.
It may all seem a rather long winded process, BUT your comments are really important to us.
So good luck, and please say hi. We will pick 3 winners from our "Bingo" bag on Monday.
Have a fab weekend, and do not miss tomorrows Crafty Advent!
Day 1 - Craftys Advent
01/12/2011
Day one of our countdown to Christmas, I have been ooohing and ahhing as to whether to do a Crafty Advent this year. Over the past 2 years I have created, crafted, sewn, stuck and dreamt up 48 different Christmas ideas, you can see 2009's here and 2010 here. To be honest I am not sure I have another 24 NEW projects in me!!
When I mentioned this in the office a few weeks back, I didn't get the response I expected of "Don't worry Ali". I got more along the lines of "BUT you must!" - well that put me in my place.
I have some ideas, not twenty four at the moment, I am hoping for divine inspiration for the balance!
Here goes with todays little idea.
A simple one. a red button and a loop of ribbon. I had to try several times to get my Robin shape to look anything like a bird let alone a Robin! I thought I had got there, but Tony said his legs are too long and he is rather fat!!! But he is my Robin and I love him.
I used a bright red button from our Christmas Berry button box here and a loop of our exclusive Happy Christmas ribbon here. I sewed the button on by hand with red thread and then used the same thread to machine stitch the card.
Hello wednesday - Advent
30/11/2011
Don't you just LOVE wednesday's? Say hello to wednesday "hello wednesday" It's all downhill from now on to the weekend - yippee!!!
This little project took me rather longer than my normal hello wednesday ideas!
With so many wonderful Christmas ribbons to play with this year, I just had to make my very own Advent calendar. At the top of my Ribbon list was the New England range here, so I combined the ribbons with a linen fabric and a rich cranberry felt to give me the rustic country Christmas effect I wanted.
I cut all the hearts from felt, sorry I have to admit I bought the felt at the Paris show, it is slightly thicker then we get here. I then stitched around each heart and embroidered the numbers. Now the numbers are not perfect, I embroidered them free hand as it was all part of getting the home made rustic look. If you are not happy with this you could easly draw the numbers on in pencil then embroider over the top. Or even use stick on numbers.
The back drop is a large piece of felt, (I bought a large santa stocking from one of the pound shops and just cut the back away and used that as it was plain. Much cheaper then buying a metre of felt!). I then embroidered around the edge with blanket stitch. The little hearts are just large enough to take a little chocolate santa or coin, but what I am going to do is wrap up little parcels with 3mm grosgrain.
I really had fun making this Advent calendar, and I made it for ME!
3 Today
29/11/2011
Our little Mollie is 3 today.
Happy Birthday Mollie.
She had her party on Sunday and I got to play pass the parcel!
We hope you have fun today with Daddy and Mummy.
Mollie first came into the warehouse when she was a few days old, her birth was our 5th ever blog post!!!
WOW it only seems like yesterday.
Glad to read that you all loved yesterdays challenge goodies from Andrea, Mel and Sharon, and YES PLEASE Andrea we would love some cupcakes at Olympia. Tony would happily become your official taster!!
Todays goodies came as rather a surprise.................the box was rather battered and crushed and looked as if it had travelled up and down the country - I think it had. When I opened it, I found these little treasures from Claire from the New England Challenge!!! She contacted me after I had said "That's it on the New England goodies"..........she could not find hers. I double checked and no we had no parcel from Claire, sadly we declared the parcel lost, but it finally arrived!!!
Claire had made this delightful card holder and a little tea light holder. The card holder is a wicked idea and using the wide grosgrain ribbon will hold the cards on display perfectly. Where did you get the little matching red pegs from Claire? They are a perfect colour match for the New England ribbons.
Houston we have a problem....................who sent their Challenge goodies back in a yellow feet street shoe box? because these wonderful creations are yours.
As soon as I spied this in the box, I wanted it. This is drop dead gorgeous and totally me...............I LOVE it. I wish I had come up with this idea.
I am getting a little worried that maybe I entered into the challenge and sent my own creations back, they are so ME! This little pillow has a slight aroma to it, I can see it hanging on a bedroom door of a little person during the lead up to Christmas.
Oooooh look at this. Could you bring yourself to use it? Adorable who ever made these creations. This New England Collection is so part of me, the colours, the texture, the memories - I am delighted that other crafters have captured the true essence of this range. Thank you. Please let us know who you are!
A short and sweet posting today - I am still working on my project for tomorrows Hello wednesday and unless I get a move on it is going to be a "Work in progress" project!!
Hope you all have fun.
Guess who.......
28/11/2011
I bet you can not guess who is picking the numbers from the "bingo" bag this week........................it really was not that dark outside......I promise. Ummmmm and sorry about the state of their school shirts, we had been crafting and blowing bubbles, it looks as if most of the bubble mixture went all over them!!
The mystery Bingo Bag pickers pulled four numbers from the "Bingo" Bag for this weeks Friday FREEBIE winners.
Each winner will get one of Bev's NEW plum Pudding bags.
Number 1 = Jan
Hi Ali I love the green behind the snowflake , last year I used some ribbon that looks much the same as your snowflake green ribbon but in blue I used it on cards and did the snowflakes punched out and blue backing , I loved them, and the ribbon looked delish
As for Bev's Bag Yummbles, is that a word? I love plum pudding and I love the look of Bev's new bag
Have a good weekend
Love Jan
xx
Number 22 = Joanne Street
The Lime ribbon looks fantastic, its a great colour. I'm just loving the plum bag, great colour idea. Thanks for the chance to win one.
Jo x
Number 28 = Jan Buckley
Hi, You won't believe this! I had already chosen silver and plum for my table settings this year, I so need to win these ribbons! They would be the "icing on the cake" lol.
Love to all Jan xxx
Number 32 = Tracey
plum pudding sounds lovely x x x
The Plum Puddings were freshly made today, and are sat cooling waiting for your address girls. Please send an email to craftyribbons@gmail.com so we can get them in the post to you as soon as poss.
Thank you to everyone that left super comments, it was great to be back home and able to read them as and when I popped onto the blog, rather then trying to catch up in one go. We have lots to share with you this week, so hope you will pop on by and say hi.
Challenge 26 - Top 5 Christmas ribbons
28/11/2011
I had great fun in opening all the parcels and envelopes yesterday for this challenge. My desk was piled high with packets! It was such a lovely although cold day yeaterday, I decided to take the photos outside, the light is so much better. But what a laugh........I decided to prop my display with christmas baubles and angel hair. I did not realise that it was so windy. The angel hair kept blowing away...........it was like those tumble weeds you see in wild west films. At one stage I was chasing it around our car park, thankfully there was no one else on the estate to see me!!!! There is much less angel hair in the last shots.....it just disappeared on me.
The first collection of goodies were delivered to me at the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC by a wonderful group of crafters. We had met before at the Olympia show, but I had not put two and two together until we met again.
Just to refresh your memories - for this Challenge # 26 the lucky challengers had to pick their TOP 5 Christmas ribbons of 2011.
All these creations you are about to see have come from only one selection of TOP 5 Ribbons and they have been made by Mel, Sharon and Andrea they all picked and shared the ribbons. What team work girls.
Mel made this easel style card with a cross stitch gingerbread man or as Mollie would say "Biccy man".
Fantastic Mel.
This card is pure magic and was made by Andrea and Sharon. Why magic you ask?
There are tiny little lights on the card, you can just see them in this close up...........and they................twinkle. This is certainly a WOW card girls.
I have had to hide this from Rachie, she has fallen head over heels in love with it. Super card Andrea.
This created rather a storm in Paris Sharon, all the ladies want the kit! Sorry no kit but we have the ribbon...........you guessed it we sold out. Thanks Sharon, this is perfect and we can display it all year round.
Sorry Andrea not a very good photo of your delightful gingerbread men, but they made it to Paris and back. Some very well travelled " pain d'epice"
This is a super fun bag from Mel, just perfect for those awkward shaped presents. I love the way Mel has teamed the let it snow ribbon up with such fun paper, just what I wanted with this ribbon design.
Andrea also crafted a bag, this time with Rudolf. What a fun creation to give someone. I nearly gave up on this ribbon design in the summer - the fine line around Rudolf was causing the printers such a problem, they wanted to remove it. I stuck to my guns and said "No line, no ribbon order". The next sample arrived with a perfect outline and it certainly has been a winner this Christmas.
I do adore your colours Mel, this card is perfect.
This decoration was created by Sharon and I proudly hung it from our fascia on Sunday at the NEC and Paris. Have you picked up on the detail on the bauble?
Crafty xmas - how did you do that Sharon? It is awesome.
You tested my photographic skills with this card Sharon, especially with all the wind. I could not lean it, wedge it or even stick it, to get it to stand up. I have a perfect shot of it falling over!!! I do like acetate cards, but your acetate seems rather special, did you print it? perfect colour match to our Happy Christmas ribbon.
Mel also made this little money wallet. I double checked Mel and it was empty!!! What a fun way to give money or vouchers at Christmas, wicked idea Mel.
Sharon this card is a delight, such perfect crafting. I will confess that I had to remove this card from our display in Paris - sorry. But so many people were asking for the wooden shape and my French is not good enough to explain.
Can you believe that ALL THESE CREATIONS came from ONE single entry into our Challenge. Thank you so much, Mel, Andrea and Sharon it was great meeting you (again) and I will look forward to seeing you again at Olympia next year. We hope you all have a fantastic Christmas.
I will be back later with the winners of this weeks Friday FREEBIE, you still have time to leave a comment to get your number in the Bingo bag.
my basket