The Character Cafe: WIW #5

Character Cafe - Work it Wednesday

Isn’t Ribbon wonderful! Where would be without it!

Hi! My name is Shelley and I am pleased to be part of the Character Café’s DT and it is my turn for Work it Wednesday. I hope you have all been enjoying the tips, techniques and ideas from our previous DT members and have used them on your cards or other projects.

Well today I want to give you some ideas of how to use ribbon on your cards. Some basic stuff and something a little different I hope you find it fun and helpful. We are using ribbon all the time on our projects and I think it finishes a card of nicely. But let’s try something different with the ribbon.

The first thing we are going to do I learnt from The Next Level challenge blog. I joined in one of their challenges and we had to use this technique on our project. So it thanks to them for this great technique. You’re going to love it!

Once you have stamped and coloured your image, measure and mark your card on the reverse of your image and punch four holes in each corner where the lines cross. Choose your ribbon and measure them against the card so they go from one hole to the next hole and add 1 ½ inches onto this length. Then do this for all four sides. The next thing to do is to tie a knot in the middle of each of the measured pieces of ribbon. Starting with one hole, pass the end of the ribbon from front to back and secure in place with tape on the back. Do the same with the other end of the ribbon and the adjacent hole. Now using this same hole, pass through another piece of the ribbon, again from front to back. So now you have two pieces of ribbon going through one hole. Secure in place. Do this now with the other ribbon pieces and the other holes until the ribbon forms a frame around your image and each hole holds two pieces of ribbon.

Next something a little simpler, we are going to have a go at colouring our ribbon. Yes, I did say colouring it. Now this technique needs you to play around and test out ribbons because all ribbons are made from different materials. The ribbon I am using for this technique is a twill ribbon with small flowers on it. I choose a Copic Pen that matched one of the colours in my image I have already coloured and started to colour alternate flowers, as you can see in the picture. All I used was the very tip of the pen because you don’t want to saturate the ribbon material. You can see it covers very well with no bleeding. You need only the tiniest amount of pressure when doing this. I am going to use this ribbon on my card later.

Finally this is just little embellishment idea for your cards using eyelets. Choose where you would like to place two punched holes on your card, as I have done. Then punch and set your eyelets in place. Next thread two strands of ribbon through both holes and tie of into a knot. Trim the ribbon to your desired length. See pictures above. You can leave it like this or you can dangle a tag or another embellishment from the ribbon as I have done on my finished card.

You’re Challenge
Now your challenge this week is to include just one or more of these ideas on your project. I really enjoyed playing with ribbon and am I sure you will too. You will be amazed at what you create. All you need to do is PLAY!
It would be great to see what you do for this challenge. So leave us a comment with a link to your project, which could be your personal blog or your gallery at SCS.