HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE

Wow doesn't time just fly by.  I cannot believe that it has come round to our January Pack SALE again!

Our ribbon packs are normally £5.00 each, during the month of January they are reduced to ONLY £1.00  That is a massive saving!! We have some NEW Packs that we have been selling at the Exhibitions this Autumn.

Why not have a look and snap up a bargain, there are over 40 different packs (at the moment!) to choose from, all colour themed. We have Valentine, Autumn, Christmas Tree and Orange Crush in the photos above.

Please feel free to tell your friends, family, colleagues about our January Pack SALE. Mention it on your forums, shout it from the roof tops!!!  This CRAZY RIBBON PACK SALE only happens once a year in JANUARY.

Have fun with ribbon

The Crafty Team

Phew that's Christmas over for another year, we all hope you had a great time.

I have one last gripe for the year (promise) -SPAM!  What is the point of it?  Why do people do it? I just have no idea what it is all about. 

Sadly our blog has had a bit of a bad time over the Christmas break with SPAM. We have upgraded the software over the past day or two and are sorry if you have been unable to log on. We are hoping that the new improvements will cut down on the unwanted SPAM.

Although the warehouse has been closed, the girls have been working behind the scenes getting everything ready for the new year -we can not wait, so many new and exciting things are planned.

We have a NEW email specailly for you, yes for you our blog followers.  Over the last few weeks several of you have been trying to get in contact with us but your emails have been swallowed up with all the others.  We receive several hundred emails a day, as you can imagaine this is a job in itself!!

So this morning I set up a google mail account just for our blog.  craftyribbons@gmail.com The best bit about this new account is we can access it from everywhere, as our normal email goes through our website secure server so we can only access it from the office.

If you want to ask a question or are chasing us or just want to say hi, please email us on craftyribbons@gmail.com

It's here, our ribbon delivery!!!  Well most of it.

Eight huge boxes, so heavy that you struggle to lift them, made it half way across the world - together. 

Eight boxes passed through customs - together.

Eight boxes made it to the Southampton Hub - together.

BUT......

Only seven boxes were deliveried to Dorset, can anyone tell me why? Southampton to Blandford, at the most 50 miles and 1 box gets lost.  So if anyone see's a sad, lonely, lost box on the side of the M3 making it's way to Blandford can you please stop and give it a lift.  Don't open it though, as it contains "Rainbows" and I do not want any to escape!!

The really good news is the Mystery ribbons for the new challenge were NOT in the lost box, so they are being posted out today.  I must go, as I have lots and lots of new ribbons to play with....

That's right - SALE TIME

There are lots and lots of ribbons, trims and goodies in our AUGUST SALE all at silly prices.  All the items at some point have been in our main range either on the website or on our exhibition stands.  We only have limited stock of these items - so when they are gone they are gone for good!!

We have also reduced our Crafty Moment Banners by a massive 75% and our Sticky Ribbon by 50% - so grab a bargain.

As a "Thank You" to all our blogging friends we are offering you an extra 20% off our website this weekend - not just the Sale items BUT everything on the website.  To claim this discount all you have to do is enter   blog   into the voucher section during the check out process, and we would love you to leave a comment in the special instruction box......Pleeease.  (This discount is only being shown on our blog and will be removed when we re-open on Monday morning.)

Don't forget if you know the answer to this months FREE Postage question, you can also claim this by going back and entering the answer into the voucher section again.

It is pouring with rain here in Dorset, hence why I cheered myself up with the picture of Mont St Michel.  We took our Grandaughter there last year on a very hot day.  Tony and I huffed and puffed our way to the top, while little Nia sat very happily in her pushchair under her parasol.  By the time we got to the top, Grandad needed the pushchair!!!!!

Just a very quick posting as there is lots going on here, will let you all know more tomorrow....

We have sponsored the new challenge starting today over on the Colour Create Blog. They have set the following challenge, why not have a go, you could win a wonderful selection of summer ribbons.

Dena has picked the colours and theme for the challenge this time and the picture she chose is of some beautiful flowers in her Mum's garden. Aren't they gorgeous?

The colours are Pink, Orange and Green.

Good Luck!

If you had not heard it is Green Britain Day today.

Here at Crafty Ribbons we try to be as "green" as we can.  All our cardboard is recycled including the cardboard inners from the ribbon rolls.  We re-use plastic bags and have changed from using plastic bags at exhibitions to paper ones.  If ribbons are not suitable to go into our scrap ribbon bags then we donate them to our local school to be re-used. Tony is always turning the lights off and the thermostats down - whether that is green or mean we are not sure!!!

We have lots of different green ribbons - so what could we make to be part of Green Britain Day.......

Plastic bags are a big issue, not just for Britain but the world over.  So I have made some shopping bags from ribbons!  Believe me they were very easy to make.

For this bag I hand stitched some 40mm green ribbon to form a union jack "style" pattern onto recyled fabric.

Tony really liked this bag as it used lots of ribbon!  It is a patchwork style bag.  

I ironed strips of ribbon onto iron-on interfacing to make fabric. Then I cut the fabric into squares and sewed them together.  The handles are made from sewing two lengths of ribbon together, as I felt one would not be strong enough.  The bag is lined with the same fabric as I used for the union jack bag above.

My last make was a union jack card - I found this the hardest project!

I stuck the ribbons on to double sided tape, then cut out the shapes - As you can see from the photo they are not all straight!!

I read last week that a photocopier left on standby every night for a year uses the same energy as it takes to make 300 cups of tea.  So both our photocopiers are now turned off each night - thats 600 free cups of tea - I like that!

We have FREE BAGS of GREEN RIBBON to give away during July so you can make some free green projects!  All you have to do to claim your FREE bag is to leave a message in the "Special Instruction" area, during the check out process.  There is enough ribbon in these FREE bags to make the patchwork bag.

Vicky and Sue have been extra busy this week to get our GREEN VALUE BAGS back in stock for today - thanks girls.

I hope you have a wonderful green weekend.

While we have all been having fun in the sun over the weekend, our two webmasters Colin and Brian have been working behind the screen of the website.  Tinkering with this and that, you probably will not be able to see any difference!!

We welcome comments and suggestions about our website and how we can improve it for you.  Although we have our own secure server, you also wanted the option to use PayPal. 

So over the weekend Brian and Colin installed it for you - thanks Guys.

The only difference with using Paypal is that we can not dispatch your order until we have cleared funds, which we gather can take a few days.

We accept the following cards on our server and the goods normally are despatched the same day.

We have spent the day adding lots of NEW Silk Ribbons to our website.

13mm Silk Ribbon - We have been asked so many times for this width, you all seem to want to make the really large flowers!

13mm Hand Dyed Variegated Silk Ribbon -  this ribbon is just gorgeous (I have snipped off several lengths for my on collection!!!)

Natural Unbleached Silk Ribbon - just what you need if you want to have a play at dyeing your own.

To launch these wonderful ribbons with everyone, or if you just want to top up on Silk Ribbons then do it THIS WEEKEND!  We have put a 15% discount on all our Silk Ribbons till we re-open on Monday morning.

That's 15% off 2mm, 4mm, 7mm, NEW 13mm, Hand Dyed, NEW Variegated, Stash Bags, Posy Kits, Hanks, NEW Natural and our Embroidery Silk Pictures.

No codes are needed for this discount, just add silk items to your basket and 15% will be deducted automatically

Have a great weekend

The Crafty Team

It would appear that we are experiencing a few problems with our automated email system.  If you have a email address which ends in btinternet.com and yahoo.co.uk and you have signed up for our blog newsletter (lets you know when a new posting has been made), then you may not be getting them.

We are very sorry for this little problem, our web guys have looked into it.  It appears that the problem lies with BT/Yahoo (they are using the same mail server for various functions).  We have contacted Yahoo and are waiting for a response, we hope it will be sorted soon.

So, if you have not had any emails from us for a while, it's not that we have stopped loving you - they are being sent, but just being returned to us!!