Ribbon, Ribbon Everywhere...

...and not a drop to drink! Wait, no. That's not how it goes.
Anyway, I have a lot of ribbon.
Ding, ding, ding!! The understatement of the year!!
Okay, enough of that. I do have a lot of ribbon.
I would like to say upfront that I got most of this stuff from swaps, yard sales and clearance bins...
I Corinthians 14:40 says, "Let all things be done decently and in order."
Oops. That has not been happening. So, I thought I'd share some before and after photos.

BEFORE: So I had a whole brown bin full of spools. Some spools on my organizer on the wall, some more in a ribbon organizer case and then random strings and pieces and bits in the metal thingy shown in the picture. Not good at all.

First thing I did was take each spool, wrap them up and tape 'em down. I do not like all the loose ribbon and ends when they come unraveled. Pure chaos! I would like to get some of those tiny (short ones) stick pins to put in them, but this will do for now.
Then I organized by color. I had a hard time deciding if I wanted it by color, type, thickness... I went with color since this is pretty much what I'd need for card making or scrapping. I'd want to start with a certain color rather than grosgrain, sheer, 1/2" or 1/4"... you know what I mean, right?
So, I started putting the spools on my wall organizer in ROY G. BIV order as best as I could.
AFTER:

I put as many up there as I could fit. Then I put the rest into the organizer case. It held the small spools mostly. I also took any rolls that I had double of and put that away in the brown bin. No need to have all that out.
Zip up organizer:

Brown bin with doubles and too large spools.

Lastly, I dumped out all the loose ribbon. I have these mostly from swaps that I have participated in in the past. My daughter helped me as I used a flat iron (for their hair) to straighten the ribbon and organize it all. Wow. Anybody need Halloween ribbon? I don't even really do "Halloween". That must've been from a swap.
After I got them all ironed - a ribbon iron by Pebbles Inc. is definitely on my wishlist - I doubled them up and put them in another brown bin. Those sit decoratively on a shelf in my scrap space.

I must say that I was quite inspired by sorting and organizing this. I thought of several cards and layouts that I could do based on the ribbon I had. Is that strange to start with a particular ribbon and go from there?
Oh, well. Whatever works, right? How about the first two to ask, gets some Halloween (and maybe more) ribbon sent their way? Just leave me a comment and mention it!

Look what I found!!

“Sometimes you've got to let everything go - purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything . . . whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out."~~Tina Turner



I was at the Goodwill store last week looking for a couple of things and I came across this hurricane candle holder. I immediately thought of all my scrap pieces of ribbon that I have in a basket. This would be perfect with all of it's holes, don't ya think?

Then I was at Michael's and had two gift cards that needed to burn. =] I bought a set of Fluid Chalks, but then kept going back to this paper set. It kept calling my name. I picked it up. Looked at it. Looked at the coordinating items in the set...*sigh*. I did have enough to get it...hmmm.... No, I don't really NEED that paper do I? I just like it because it's all whimsy and fun....ugh. I can't resist. Rush back to the end aisle where it was on sale and then - for the first time - remember I have a coupon in my wallet too. Oh, good. Get both packs. Yea! No tough decisions to make today. Just pure, yummy, paper-lovin' fun! =] They are by Colorbok and are from their Friendly Forest line! The first pack came in a sturdy zippered package and includes punch outs, foiled papers, patterened and solid papers, divider tabs, etc. The second pack has 8 shaped specialty papers. Mmmmm...love it!


The second pack:


Can you blame me?