Our first Calling All Bloggers submission is here!  This post was sent to us by Marie / Legojenta.  Please take the time to read over her post & let us all know what you think!

Ribbon Weaving

Hi everyone!
I hope you are all having a wonderful day! Today I want to share with you a set of three cards I made with some great May Arts ribbon. I was looking through the different ribbon May Arts sells, and was immediately intrigued by their reversible satin ribbon with stitched edges. They look so fantastic with a different color on the reverse side, imagine all of the possibilities with that! I could totally see beautiful bows with one color inside the loops and another on the outside before my inner eye, but there was one other thing I thought of doing with these ribbons as well. My second idea? To use the same ribbon, both sides, to weave with!
I’ve made three cards to show you today. I wanted to use the same technique, weaving, to create what I think is three different styles on the cards. For all three cards, I’ve used the 1” reversible satin ribbon with stitched edges, only in three different color combinations. I’m first going to show you how to weave the background on the cards I’ve made, and then I’m going to show you all three cards together =)

Supplies

•  May Arts ribbon: 1” wide satin/reversible/stitched edge ribbon, in the pink/brown color (354-93), 1” wide satin/reversible/stitched edge ribbon, in the green/blue color (354-34), 1” wide satin/reversible/stitched edge ribbon, in the black/silver color (354-10).

• Bazzill cardstock: ‘White’.

• Double sided tape: “Super Adhesive Tape” in both 1/4″ and 1/2″ widths, from Rubber Stamp Concepts.

• Stamps: Hippo amongst flowers is from the “Mindy’s Zoo” clearstampset by Autumn Leaves. The frog is an unmounted stamp from High Hopes, called “Hangin’ Around”.

• Memento inkpad in “Tuxedo Black” to stamp the images with.

• Promarkers: I used promarkers to color both stamped images. Colors used: Ice Grey 1, Ice Grey 3, Pink Carnation, Meadow Green, Blush, Bright Green, Pumpkin, Cool Aqua, Blender.

• JudiKins Diamond Glaze.

• Spellbinders Nestabilities: “Classic Scalloped Rectangles Large”, “Classic Scalloped Circles Large”, “Standard Circles Large”, “Labels Eight”.

• EKSuccess 5/16” circle punch (used to punch the corners of the sentiment on the black/silver card).

• Font: “Vivaldi” used to type the sentiment for the black/silver card. The sentiment reads ‘Congratulations on this special day!’ in Norwegian.

Instructions

I started the process of making these cards by deciding on the size of my card. I chose to do a square card, 4 1/2” by 4 1/2” in size. I also cut out a piece of cardstock, measuring 4” by 4”, to use as a base for my weaving.

I put double sided tape on the outside edges on the back side of this base piece.

On two of my samples, I also covered the front of this piece with adhesive. Doing that makes the finished woven piece a “flat” appearance, but this also makes it slightly more difficult to weave, because you need to be super careful where you place your ribbons down. You can certainly weave without the adhesive on the front, but this will make your finished piece “fluffier”. In my pictures showing how to weave, I had the adhesive covering the front of the base. Here’s a picture of one of the fluffy pieces vs. the flat piece.

 I cut eight pieces of the reversible ribbon, at about 5”, to use for my weaving. To start the weaving, I peeled of the liner from the tapes on the back, and adhered one end of four pieces down to one side. I made sure all the four pieces were adhered with the same color facing up.

I added some extra adhesive on top of the ribbon, and then I then adhered the ends of the remaining four pieces to another side. For this side, I made sure all of the pieces where adhered with the second color (the reverse of the ribbons adhered to the top edge), facing up. I then flipped the piece of paper over.

 To weave the ribbons, I went over, under, over, under each ribbon from the top, with each piece of ribbon from the left side. I worked on top of a page from an old sticker album, to make sure the exposed adhesive on the back didn’t stick to my work surface. I also used a second sticker album-page to make sure the pieces of ribbon I was working with didn’t adhere too far down. I moved the sheet one row further down for each time I adhered a ribbon-piece from the left. I also used a punch to hold the ribbons away when needed. This weaving-technique with the adhesive on the front, is really something you get better at with practice. The first time doing it, I really had to think about it, but for my second piece I could do it without thinking as much about it =)

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When I had the whole piece finished, I adhered the remaining ends to the back of the base. I used a bit of extra tape on top of the ribbon on all four corners to make sure the corners were well adhered too =)

And there is the finished, woven piece!

 For my card, I cut a piece of cardstock to 4 1/2” by 9”, and scored and folded it at 4 1/2”.

 I adhered the woven piece to the center of the card base, using foam adhesive.

 To finish up the card, I added a focal point with foam adhesive on the card, on top of the weaving.
And here are all three cards together:

If you notice, the brown/pink woven piece is a bit more “fluffy” than the two others, that’s because I didn’t use the adhesive to stick the ribbons to the front of the base, as I did with the two others. You can see a closer picture of ‘fluffy vs. flat’ above.
I used the three different colors of the ribbon as an influence to what style, or feel, the card would have, and made the different focal points to fit each color of ribbon =)
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and that I succeeded in showing the versatility of one ribbon, and how one technique can be used to create different styles on a card.

Thanks for stopping by! Please view the supplies-list above if you’re wondering what May Arts ribbons and other products I used for my three cards =)
- Marie / Legojenta