It is my turn to host todays NEW Challenge over on our Challenge blog here.  I am pretty excited I have never hosted a challenge before, what I am really looking forward to..........is.............picking the top three winners!  No bingo bag, I can actually pick the ones I like - awesome!  Well what is my theme I hear you ask - "Paws for thought".  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, now this can include paws, animals or just plain and simple thought, thinking of you, especially for you, get the idea?

This is my little creation for "Paws for thought".

My normal style just ribbons and buttons and a few bits of card!  The paw print ribbon is not new, we have had Muddy Paws here for a while, BUT we re-designed it over Christmas so that the paws are in the centre of the ribbon!! The paws and bones are both buttons, sorry they are not on the site, neither is the little doggy ribbon, but the girls will be very happy to help you if you call in.  I hear you tut tutting me, but to be honest it is just not possible to have all our stock on the website, we do have to keep different items for the shows!! If you are able to come and visit us we are in Glasgow 8 -11 March Hobbycrafts - SECC and 15 - 18 March Stitch & Craft 2011 - Olympia, London. 

Back to the Challenge, there is a prize - a collection of our Muddy paws ribbons.

So come on and join in with our NEW Challenge and have some fun with those paws of yours!  For some super inspiration have a look at what the design team have created here. Wow those girls just ooooze inspiration.

Have a great day, Tony and I have the warehouse to ourselves today.  It is half term and everyone is having a playday - swimming.  I did get asked but I am not in the mood to get wet!!!

Wow you have all been creative with your black and red creations.  A super selection for our last challenge, do pop over to the challenge blog here to see if you have won.  Many thanks for everyone for joining in.

Our NEW Challenge starts today and is being hosted by Trish, she has picked a very difficult theme for me One for the men or boys in our lives.  Ooo er missus. I will give it a try.

I have not had a chance to create with our NEW French Macaron ribbon, so thought.............well the man in my live likes his tummy.................he also likes macarons (either that or I have a mouse in my studio, my supply of macarons used to produce these ribbons have dwindled!!)

So this is what I came up with...............

Is it male enough?!  What can you create for the men in your lives?  Go on and give it a try and join in with our new challenge here

Did you spot the Joyeux Anniversaire ribbon - no we have not spelt it wrong (well I hope not) it is Happy Birthday in French.  Well we could not produce all those wonderful French Macarons with out adding a little bit of French wording.

This ribbon is not only for our French customers, add a little bit of "je ne sais quoi" to your crafting. It will be going onto the site later today, I have a meeting first thing and will add them after.

Nearly forgot this new challenge is being sponsored by Mulberry Crafts. Bev has given a super selection of flowers and do I spot some ribbon!

Have a super day and I will be back later with the Joyeux anniversaire ribbon details.

Well did you enjoy the blog hop?  I think several of us including me were blog hop newbies, yes I did follow the hop myself.  And for once I did not get lost! Thank you to everyone that took part, you will find the winner of the £20.00  voucher and all the candy winners on the challenge blog here.

The winner of our blog hop candy was Victoria - if you can email me at craftyribbons@gmail.com you will have some wonderful ribbons to play with Victoria.

Carol is hosting this new Challenge and the title to her theme is..........Love is Black and Red.  Oooooh Carol Black and Red, not colours I believe I have worked with before, so another new challenge for me.  Well that is what it is all about. 

Black and red, red and black I wandered the ribbon aisle. Ummm velvet for a bit of luxury, grosgrain for added texture and all my love ribbon - perfect.  So I rushed back upstairs with my little hoard and started to play. I like playing!

Well I do not think you can get more black and red then that.  Velvet ribbon can be found here, some 60 colours! The grosgrain is 16mm and you will find lots here, the all my love ribbons we launched yeaterday and are here.  So that is my entry for this new challenge, but you can find the rest of the DT creations by visiting the challenge blog here.

As always there is a prize..............and what a surprise...................Bev's bag is all Black and Red!

Enjoy.

Happy Birthday Bev.................you are catching me up!!

Where did Christmas go?  How can it be our first challenge of 2012 on our Challenge blog. Gina is hosting our first Challenge of the New Year, she has themed it New Beginings, but it DOESN'T have to be a New Year card it can be a New Baby - New Home or Job or even School etc, just play around with it and most importantly have fun.

After all the Advent Christmas makes - yes 24 NEW and different ideas on the trot, I feel a bit idea empty.  I sat and hoped an inspirational card moment would pop into to my head, but as you know cards are not really my forte, I just stared out of the window!  But I do have a friend starting a new job, she is really excited as it has a expresso machine in the staff room! I found her a wicked little expresso cup and saucer in France, so thought I would make it into a little gift set for her.

I filled the expresso cup with coffee beans so when she opened the cellophane she would get a wonderful aroma.  Three coffee flavoured macaroons arranged on the saucer completed the prezzie, well apart from the wrapping - cellophane, a tag and our NEW Congratulations ribbon, you will be able to find the ribbon here.

I already know she liked her prezzie, and the ribbon was carefully folded and put into her bag I noted!!

How about you, do you have a New Beginnings idea - then why not enter our challenge, and show us what you have made.  Or just pop by and see what all the DT girls have come up with, they have certainly used their imaginations and worked around Gina's theme.  You can find the challenge blog here .  Thank you to everyone that joined in with the last challenge, please do not forget to check to see if you won!  We only had 24 entries, but it was Christmas, so you could be the winner of Bev's Ribbon Bag  - Plum Pudding.

Regular readers will know that our super duper January Ribbon Pack SALE is on - ribbon packs reduced from £5 to just £1 each.  We want to tell as many people as possible about this super offer, so we thought of a Blog Hop (ooooh I have always wanted to have one of those).  When I told the girls in the warehouse, they looked at me as if I was mad - "A WHAT?".  You can get the full list of blogs over at Crafty Ribbons Challenge Blog. At each stop there'll be a word to collect and a candy draw. I've got this gorgeous collection of ribbons to give away, so leave a comment for a chance to win my candy.  (Please refresh your page once you have left a comment, our spam filter likes to eat them.  If your comment has disappeared then please email it to me at craftyribbons@gmail.com and I will add it for you.)

This is your first blog, the start of the blog hop. My word is the. At the end of the blog hop you should have 12 words, work out the phrase and leave it in the comments back at Crafty Ribbons Challenge blog. The blog hop will run until 6pm on 18th January 2012 and the winner and the winners of each of the Design Teams Candy will be announced with the start of the New Challenge on the 19th January

Your next stop is to Mandy and her blog is here. If you lose your way you can go back to Crafty Ribbons Challenge to get the full list. Good luck everyone.

Oooh I do hope I have got that all correct, I have never been very good at giving directions or following maps.  When I took my skipper exams I had to have the charts the same way up as we were sailing, much to the annoyance of the male sailors............but I passed!.

Good luck everyone and hope you have some fun.

It is the start of another Challenge over on our Ribbon Challenge blog - wow those two weeks have flown by.

Thank you to everyone that entered the last challenge, we had some super Traditional projects and cards.  This NEW Challenge is a sketch designed by Tessa and Anke.  Oooooooh something to take me out of my comfort zone, a SKETCH.....................yikes!  So I had a think and and came up with a plan. Do you remember I went back to school last week..........well I wanted to make a Thank you card for the teacher.  Everyone together................ ahhhh!

So here is Tessa and Anke's sketch

I do not think I did too badly for my first ever sketch!!  For the centre section I wove three colours of the twill ribbon here on top of a small piece of iron-on vilene and then ironed it in place.  The rose is made from seam binding ribbon and can be found here, and the instructions for the rose are here.  Some of you may have spotted the Thank you ribbon and yes it is NEW!

Gorgeous NEW Thank you ribbons are here!

If you get a spare moment (I know everyone is soooooo busy) check out the DT girls creations, boy do we have a fab Design Team - thanks girls.

This is our last collection of creations from our Top 5 Christmas ribbon challenge and they are from Karen.

Ooops sorry Karen a little to much light in the photo, a super card from black and silver with a matching card.  I love the way you have matched them up Karen.

Oooh I like candles, Karen was very thoughtful and put a candle safe tag with this card - remove ribbon before lighting and never leave unattended. A beautiful prezzie Karen.

Nadolig Llawen is Welsh for Forever Friends - how super Karen, great card.

I think is a super idea Karen - a Jar of cinnamon sugar to sprinkle over mince pies.  Oh dear how did this jar find it's way into the car, I seem to have it in France!!! Yummmy Karen especially since I have just baked a fresh batch of mince pies.

What am I like - this also has found it's way to France.........................Karen I think this is one of the coolest ideas this Christmas.  A Ho-ho-ho place mat for santa's cookies and milk.  This will be in use this  Saturday, thanks Karen

That is all of our challenge goodies for this year, thank you to everyone that have taken part, not just in the challenge but all the others this year.  Super creations and a wonderful use of ribbon - inspiration to us all.

We are off out to see if there are any Christmas trees left in France, we brought the little one with us that I used for the Advent photos, but to be honest it is very small and looks a little bit lost. Tony made sure that the tree was totally covered in the back of the car, he didin't want other ferry passengers to comment "What no Christmas Trees in France?"  Which is something Tony would say!!!

Have a wicked day.

 Sorry our warehouse is now closed until the 3rd January 2012 - no orders will be despatched during our closure.
Orders will be despatched on the 3rd January in strict order number rotation.
City Link option will be active again from the 1st January but will not be despatched until the 3rd.

I can not believe it is time for another challenge over on our Ribbon Challenge Blog - but it is. Thank you to everyone that took part in the last challenge, such wonderful creations.

Our new Challenge has been choosen by Pinky and her theme is Traditional Colours for Christmas.

Ooooh......ooh........here am I jumping up and down, I can do this challenge, just up my street as they say.

Not just any odd Christmas Tree...............oh no...................this tree is special.................It is a Christmas Door Stop Tree. 

I made a sheet of fabric by ironing lengths of the New England ribbons here onto iron-on vilene then simply ironed them in place.  Next I drew a tree shape onto some paper, making the branches fit the widths of ribbon.  I cut it out and refined the shape slightly, it had rather a big bottom.  I placed cream felt, then the ribbon fabric and finally the template on top, pinned it all together and machined around the paper shape.  Removing all the pins and the paper shape, I cut around the tree, snipped and clipped the corners and then turned it through to the right side.

Using a knitting needle I poked out all the tree shape, to give it the rustic feel I embroidered some straight stiches to look as if it was holding the ribbon together.

I wanted to make the stitches uneven.  I had to keep unpicking it as I realised they were all neatly lined up - no Ali, messy and rustic! I part filled the tree with toy stuffing and the balance with rice so it would be weighted down. Not sure it would hold a door from slamming in gale force winds, but it does look sweet sat on the floor.

We hope you can join in with our New Challenge, if you have a spare moment pop on over here and have a look at what the talented DT girls have come up with.  There are some super ideas.  Must not forget the prize for the lucky winner. Mulberry Crafts are our sponsor this week and Bev has given a delightful selection of flowers.

Bev writes - MulberryCraftsUK online shop is a Home-Based business run by Bev .At the moment we are focusing on providing miniature flowers made from genuine mulberry paper for crafts use - although we have a small selection of non -paper crafts too. Why mulberry papers? Because they are robust, look realistic and last longer than ordinary paper and provide a sustainable income for people in the cottage industry. In due course we will be introducing more of  other craft materials not related to mulberry paper.  Website - mulberrycraftsuk.co.uk

Did you see our ribbons on telly last night?  Channel 4 - Kirstie's homemade Christmas. The parcels underneath Kirstie's tree were wrapped in our ribbons.  Crafty Ribbons on telly!

That's me for today, see you all tomorrow.

"ALL hands to the pumps"....well no not pumps but ribbons!  Yes I am wanted..........helping with despatching orders.  The girls have a STRICT order number system of pulling orders.  No order jumps the queue unless it is a City Link order.

BUT - "I do not want to do that one, or that one, I will do the easy ones........the ones with only one or two items". NO Ali, by order number....BUT.............BUT............... I felt like a naughty child.  My ball I will do what I want!!!!  In the end Rachie and Bev grudgingly allowed me to pick the easy orders, so if your order arrived sooner then you thought and it only had a few items in it............ you have me to thank, I picked your order!!!

I have already been told that I am packing orders today, I like doing this, I get to choose which "I'm FREE" ribbon to give.  Little things!

As I have been roped into help with the orders I have got rather behind with my own work.  I have piles of Challenge goodies to photograph (thank you) I hope to start this over the weekend and share next week. 

I am late with my DT project for the Challenge blog, which started yesterday - sorry everyone.  

Challenge 7 is being hosted by Bonnie and it is -  Make a Tag.  Tags and ribbons were made for each other..............and tags need a parcel to go on............................

How simple is that.

Looking at the tag I think I should have put white card behind the snowflake as the lime is not a perfect match.  The ribbons I used were Go Grosgrain snowflakes here, Let it snow here and 3mm satin here.  For even more tag inspiration then have a look at the Design teams creations - totally fab here.

Bev has also come up with a NEW Bev's bag....................(DO NOT panic if you have not got round to ordering the Christmas ones, she has left those on the site as well.) 

You know what Bev is like, she fancied a NEW colour way, this time she has gone for Plum Pudding.

........oooooh yummmie, maybe she should have done a side bag of lashings of cream and white ribbons!!!  You can find Bev's NEW Ribbon Bag HERE. 

OR..........

....we have four Bev's bags for this weeks Friday FREEBIE.  For a chance to win, just leave us a comment and we will pick four winners on Monday.

Oh well the order packing table is calling me.

Have a fab weekend.

If you are unable to leave a comment due to our spam filters, please email it to craftyribbons@gmail.com and we will add it for you.
All the comments go into our "Bingo" bag and we draw a random number(s) on Monday.
Please check back to see if you have won, it is up to you to claim your prize - we do not contact you.

How can it be time for another Challenge over on our challenge blog (here).  Time is just whizzing by. The theme this time is Anything but a card.  I can do that!!! But first a huge thank you to everyone that took part in the challenge, it was fab to see so many creations, we hope you all had fun.

Anyone who has visited us this season at an exhibtion will have seen me wearing a button necklace, and I promised that I would make a tutorial for you all. Speared on by the fact that I will be wearing the necklaces (yes I have a collection in different colours!) in Paris next week, and my French is not good enough to talk them through the demo!, this Anything but a card challenge has come just at the right time.

So here goes with my tutorial.

Step 1.  Gather all the bits you need, 5 large buttons for the bottom row, 4 large buttons for the top row (I use 2 different colours), and 6 small buttons, they can all be found stripes here and spots here.  You also need a needle, scissors and some Organza swiss dot ribbon here.

Step 2.  Cut the ribbon to a very fine point.

Step 3.  Thread a normal needle.

Step 4.  Lay the buttons out to form the necklace.  This ensures you pick up the correct buttons.

Step 5.  Thread the first large button from the bottom row onto the needle.

Step 6.  Sew up through the small button that sits on top.

Step 7.  The ribbon goes across the button and back down through the other hole.

Step 8.  The small button at the start and end of the necklace acts as a stopper, so the buttons do not slide along the ribbon.  So we take the needle through the same hole the ribbon came up through.

Step 9.  Come back up the other hole in the large button.  Pull the ribbon tightish so that it snuggles to the button.

Step 10.  Pick up the next two button from your line and go up through both. 

Step 11.  Take the needle back through the spare hole in the small button, the large button AND a new large button from your line. Pull the ribbon tightish.

Step 12.  Take the ribbon up through the bottom large button and pick up the next set of large and small buttons from the line.

Step 13.  Repeat 11 and 12 until you come to the last small button.

Step 14.  As this is the last stopper button it needs to be sewn back through the hole you have already come up through.

I just tie the ribbon at the back of the neck with a bow.

So come on and join in with us on our Crafty ribbons Challenge Blog HERE , you can have some fun and might even win some ribbon.  The prize is our famous Bev's Bag! The winner can pick which ever one they would like.  How cool is that!

If you have not got time to enter the challenge, do check out the DT girls creations they are awesome and are ooozing with inspiration - ribbon inspiration of course!

We are putting the final touches to our Paris stand today, the last minute stock has been returned from the out girls so just needs putting on the pegs.

Hope you all have a great day.

It's time for a NEW Challenge over on our challenge blog (here) and when the DT girls said we should do a Bingo Challenge I was completly flummoxed!  Ok - I know what the game of Bingo is, ( I used to play it with my Nan), and I know we use a bingo bag for all our Friday Freebie numbers, BUT how can that be a challenge.  Anyway, I shouted help and the girls came to my rescue.............

....this is the Bingo board and you have to select a line of three to make your creation..................ooooooh that's NEW to me (I get the feeling they are trying to push me out of my comfort zone!).  Glitter - nope haven't any, ditto flowers although I could make some, embossing - rather on the scary side, lace - only have one and I used that on the last challenge. 

Maybe I should look at it from the other side, what can I do. Ribbon (loads and loads of it!), I like the idea of hand made embellishments and I am sure I can find some gems. 

That's my line Handmade embellishment, ribbon and gems. Do you want to see what I made, (believe it or not I am rather a nervous crafter) never thinking my creations are very good, so I always show the girls in the warehouse first.  If I get a good reaction, I share with you all...................if not................back to the drawing board. 

The flowers are my handmade embellishments, I sewed the flowers first using seam binding ribbon.  I punched out the flower shape and made a hole in the centre then pushed the sewn flower through it.  The gems were a problem, I could not find any.  So in the end I raided Sydney's craft drawer!!!  I always give her the little free packets you get on the craft magazines and I finally found the three little silver flower gems.  I had not planned on using silver so I then did some faux stitching with a silver pen around the card and on the flowers.

Although I had used ribbon to make my flowers, I thought I still needed to use it again for the third item of the bingo challenge.  Not seen this ribbon on our website?   Yes you have.....it's seam binding......but I have printed on it using my ink jet printer.  How cool is that!  (Don't worry I will show you a little later.)

When I put all my card together I thought it looked a bit............well............plain.  So I added a few extra faux stitched flowers.  After the scariness had gone away I had so much fun making this card, why don't you come and join in with the challenge (here).  We have a super prize this week, no NOT Ribbon, we have a sponsor - Mulberry Crafts

MulberryCraftsUK online shop is a Home-Based business run by Bev .  At the moment we are focussing on providing miniature flowers made from genuine mulberry paper for crafts use - although we have a small selection of non -paper crafts too. Why mulberry paper? Because they are robust, realistic, look and last longer than ordinary paper and it provides a sustainable income for people in the cottage industry. In due course we will be introducing more of  other craft materials which is not related to mulberry paper.   Website - mulberrycraftsuk.co.uk

Bev has given a extra super collection of flowers for a prize.  Ooooh I would like some of those.

 

Put double sided tape over the printing.  Peel off the backing paper and place the seam binding ribbon over your design and stick to the paper.  feed this back into your printer and print the same design again.

Carefully lift the seam binding ribbon away from the sticky paper.

That is it!!!  Just think what you can do - ribbon to match your backing paper, ribbon to match your borders.  The only down side is you can only print the length of A4 paper, but I am sure that will not stop you.

Nearly forgot you can find our seam binding HERE.

We have a new Challenge starting on our Challenge blog HERE today and it is being hosted by Leslie-Rahye.  She has chosen the theme.....

"BOO-tiful Halloween Projects--Pretty Spooky" [not just limited to cards].......

and the prize could be nothing less then a super collection of halloween ribbons.

So what did I make....... for once a card.

As soon as these spider buttons arrived in the warehouse i know what I wanted to do with them....so simple.
You can find all the halloween buttons and ribbons here, or why not play along with our NEW Challenge and try and win a bundle for FREE!

If you need a little bit of Halloween inspiration then you must check out the DT girls creations HERE, they are truly fab,
trick or treat bags to hair bows, cards to covered boxes, I am sure you will be amazed ... I was.

acebook

Love it or hate (it is a bit like marmite!).  Well yesterday I hated it more than anything else on the planet.
I did.
We have converted from a profile with friends to a business page with likes.

Sounds simple. I backed up our timeline and did everything Facebook told me to do, the migrate went with out a hitch,
our friends were transfered as likes (super).

But no where could I find out how to reload all the past postings.
So we have a very bare facebook page at the moment, but please pop on over and become a "Like"!
If anyone can share the secret of how to get everything back loaded, then please tell.

You can now find us here

Before I forget - polystyrene balls can be found at Hobbycraft or Pinflair

Have fun