Creating with eyes wide open! Shabby Christmas Snippet Ribbon

Hi Everyone, 

Today I thought I would share with you how I made this lovely shabby Christmas ribbon.  This ribbon could be used as garland, or for gift packages, especially gifts wrapped in newspaper or brown paper. 

Please do share if you make this shabby ribbon, I would love to see your creations.

NOTE: If you want to see closeups, just click on the pictures.

 

 

I had started out going through some boxes of Christmas stuff that was destined for either the thrift shop or the landfill and I decided to make sure that there wasn't anything going to the landfill if I could fix it or reuse it in some way. Since I had being watching a few Christmas DIY videos on snippet rolls I thought maybe I could make some kind of snippet ribbon that I could use in my journals or scrapbook/card making. This next picture shows you a used piece of red velvet ribbon, the kind that comes from those ugly big bows from the dollar store. There is a very wrinkled mini Christmas gift bag, a plaid bow that had seen better days, a shiny gold fabric gift bag missing the tie, some red checkered fabric strip and a couple of old gold pipe cleaners that originally tied the plaid bow. 

 

Ohh and a crochet doily that was once draped over a ball ornament.

I tore up the gift bag into little chunks

The red velvet ribbon was about 6 inches wide so I cut without measuring into 4 strips in lengths of about 3 feet. The ribbon was wider and narrower in spots but it didn't matter. 

I then cut up the gold fabric bag and plaid ribbon into little willy nilly pieces squares and strips and chop chop chop.

I used my sewing machine, but you could easily hot glue the pieces and just randomly sewed down the middle of the ribbon adding pieces and changing it up as I went along. When I was getting close to the end of the red velvet strip I just added another strip by overlapping an inch or so and caught it with the next pieces as I sewed. The doily cut up didnt last very long so I used some pieces of lace too.

When I was done this is still what I have left over as pieces.

I stitched 3 rows back and forth and used the zig zag stitich over top. You can see that I added some small images. You can find all kinds on pinterest and print them on your computer, or cut up old wrapping paper, stickers, other ribbons, lace, Christmas cards or scrap fabrics or scrapbook paper, music sheets, it is endless! If you dont have some red velvet ribbon, you could tear an old plaid shirt or last years plaid pajamas into strips and use as a base for your ribbon. 

Its okay if there are frayed edges, it is supposed to be shabby.

I left pieces hanging over the edges and bare spots too so that you can see the red velvet.

my stitches on the backside are not perfect, its just to hold everything secure.

This roll is 8 yards long!!! 8 yards? yes thats 24 feet if you are counting. And I could easily do another 8 yards with the red velvet I have left, but I need to find some more stuff to cut up.

 

 

 

 

 

hand made tea towels

Hi everyone, 

Tom and I have always been brutal with how we use tea towels in our household. If something spills on the floor whether it is coffee, wine or beet juice, a tea towel is the first line of mopping up. So our tea towels almost always look grungy after a few uses. I do soak/wash them with bleach to get most of the stains out and I know they are clean but they dont often look nice. Lol

So the alternative is to continue replacing with new towels. I find that tea towels are either $6 to $8.00 for a decent one, and a cheap one from the small change stores wouldn't hold up very long under our conditions..

So the alternative is to make them. I look for large cotton tablecloths at thrift shops and often they are very inexpensive, maybe having a couple of small stains on them is all. These tea towels were made from a tablecloth I picked up this week. I cut/tore into 8 pieces, hemmed the edges on the sewing machine and in less than an hour I have 8 pretty teatowels. Ohh and by the way, the table cloth cost me a mere 50 cents. 

Score!