conserving ribbon

I am a ribbon addict!

I formally confess to all of you out there in blogdom.

I love ribbon! It's not that I use a lot of it. I just like looking at it. It's so pretty rolled up in my glass jars, and trailing off my shelves ... and curled up in my ribbon holders ... and wrapped around the ribbon cards ...


Ok, you get it, I have waaay too much ribbon. I should make a concerted effort to use ribbon whenever and where ever I am able. But instead, I find myself trying to find ways to conserve and horde my ribbons. Every inch counts, you know.


So, I thought I would share a ribbon conservation technique that I employ often. If I am scrapping or making a card I will cut the ribbon so that none is hidden and, therefore, wasted behind cardstock. Take a look here:






This is a birthday card in progress. Nothing has been adhered yet, I am checking my design elements to make sure they are in proper place. See the beautiful ribbon? It appears to be one strip, right? Wrong! Take a look:

I actually cut the ribbon so that the area behind the stickers has no ribbon. Now, I know you are thinking ... How much does that save? An inch? ... Well, maybe on this card ... but other projects may have larger area where ribbon would be covered. In fact, I made 4 cards tonight and by cutting my ribbon, I actually save 8 1/2 inches of that gorgeous material by piecing it! If I had not cut the ribbon, I would not have been able to get 4 cards from one small piece. Take a look:

Four cards with one length of ribbon! All the ribbon was adhered using red line tape. The birthday stickers are by Cloud 9, each card is embossed w/ Cuttlebug folders, the ink is Colorbox white and the beautiful ribbon is actually unknown! {it was given to me}

happy stampin'

Susan