Back 2 School Ribbon Crafts!

 Lanyards and wristlets are the perfect hands free accessory for students, teachers and school staff. Customizing them with Gwen Studios ribbons helps to make them extra special and extra fun!

* As a design team member for Gwen Studios,
I am provided with product to work with each month.

To make the ribbon lanyard, you will need the following:

• Gwen Studios Sweet Shop Ribbons
• Metal lanyard clip
• Assorted charms
• Heat n Bond - iron on adhesive
• Scissors
• Iron

1. Cut 2 ribbons at 38" each.

2. Cut your heat n bond at 37" and if its not the same size as your ribbon, trim to fit.
The heat n bond comes with (shiny) adhesive side and a paper backing.

3. Place the heat n bond adhesive side down onto the back side of one of the ribbons, leaving 1" uncovered at the end.

4. Carefully run the iron over the ribbon. This will be HOT, so make sure you are using a heat proof surface. 
5. After you have ironed the whole length of the ribbon, carefully peel off the heat n bond paper backing. 

6. Lay the 2nd ribbon as shown and iron again to fuse the two together. 

7. Once cool, thread the ribbon through the key ring.

8. You should have a 1" space at the end of your ribbons. 

Fold this back and iron a piece of the heat n bond - face down as shown in #9. 

10. Peel off the backing and trim off any stray threads.  Then sandwich the other end of the lanyard between the open end and iron to fuse shut, making sure to iron the other side as well. 

Leave to cool before adding charms and other accessories. 

*   *   *

To make the matching ribbon wristlet, consider using a coordinating piece of grosgrain ribbon as I did here with some orange. 

1. Cut 2 ribbons and 1 length of heat n bond at 12" each and fuse together.

 Fold slightly in half, leaving a 1" space at one end. Mark this space with a pen.

2. Cut a length of heat n bond and place as shown. Secure with the hot iron and remove the backing.

3. Bring up the end of the ribbon to just below the line. 
4. Carefully iron on just the 'left' side, fusing that small area in place. 

5. Slide the key fob ring in place. 

6. Fold the remaining end down and iron both sides to be sure it will not come undone.

Add some heat in bond to a small bit of ribbon and use to cover the exposed area.

That's it! So fun, right? 

Mix and match with your favorite Gwen Studios Ribbons and Trims!

Find your favorite Gwen Studios Ribbons at your local Walmart and online at Walmart.com!

Follow this link for more creative ribbon idea's! 

Curly Ribbon Hair Clips

Now that its Summer, I couldn't wait to make up these fun hair clips using new Curly Ribbon from Gwen Studios! 

* As a design team member for Gwen Studios,
I am provided with product to work with each month.

To get started, you will need the following:

• Gwen Studios Curly Ribbon
• Snap hair clips
• Scissors
• Hot glue

Find your favorite Gwen Studios Curly Ribbons at your local Walmart and online at Walmart.com!

 Per hair clip,  you'll need 3 strands, 24" each of the  gold curly ribbon and 2 strands, 24" each of the holographic curly ribbon. 

1. Find the center mark of the 3 strands of the curly gold ribbon and place in the hair clip as shown. 

2. Tightly tie in a double knot.

3.  Carefully pull down the knotted ribbon a bit on the hair clip and slide the 2 strands of the holographic ribbon under the knot. 

4. Tie firmly in place. Slide the knotted ribbon back up to the top of the hair clip.
Secure ribbon in place with a bead of hot glue.

5.  Use your scissors to curl all your ribbons. 

Hide the center knot by tying 1 silver ribbon and 1 gold ribbon. Fluff with fingers when done.

So cute! Check out some of my other variations below.
I can't wait to wear the patriotic ones on July 4th!

See more Curly Ribbon craft idea's here! 

Make a Seaside Garland with Gwen Studios!

 If there is one thing I love, its all things to do with the sea!
I live near enough that I can spend a few hours or the whole day if needed. 
Making beach crafts is one of my favorite things to do 
and this Seaside Garland is a breeze to make!

* As a design team member for Gwen Studios,
I am provided with product to work with each month.

To get started, you will need the following:

• Gwen Studios Red & White Taffy Striped Grosgrain Bows
• Gwen Studios Red & White Taffy Striped Grosgrain Ribbon 3/8"
• Gwen Studios Red & White Taffy Striped Grosgrain Ribbon 5/8"
• Gwen Studios Red & White Taffy Striped Grosgrain Ribbon 3/8"
• Cord
• Twine
• Seashells/ Starfish
• Scissors
• Hotglue
• Sealer (optional)

All items  can be purchased from Michaels.com

1. Prep the selected shells and starfish by first cleaning them with a damp cloth, then applying a coat of clear sealer. Set these aside to dry while you wrap the twine around the cord.

2. Next, cut 8" lengths of the assorted ribbon. 

Fold them in half and hot glue to the back or inside of the shells.

 

3. Loop and glue some ribbon as shown below, to the back of a couple of shells and the starfish.
Slide these loops onto the wrapped cord and attach the bows using the included twist-ties. 

 4. Stagger your shell placement on the garland, filling in spaces with tied ribbon.

All ready for summer!

Head on over here  to see more creative idea's to make with this ribbon!

DIY Ribbon Bookmarks with Gwen Studios

These ribbon bookmarks are a great way to bring new life to old jewelry.
A quick and easy craft for the whole family.
Make a bunch (like I did) and tuck them in a book or gift them on their own!

* As a design team member for Gwen Studios,
I am provided with product to work with each month.

To get started, you will need the following:

• Any Gwen Studios Ribbons, 1" or smaller
  Ribbon Clamps (2 per bookmark)
• Jewelry pliers
• Scissors and a ruler
• Assortment of old jewelry, lone earrings, charms and beads. (2 per bookmark)

Measure and cut your ribbon at 10". Final book mark length will be about 9". Make sure you are using sharp scissors when cutting your ribbons to help deter fraying on the ends. 

Fold the ends of the ribbon at about ½". If you are not able to get a crisp fold, add a little bit of double stick tape under the fold. Use your thumb and finger to firmly hold the ribbon in the clamp while you crimp one side with the pliers. Then you can finish crimping the rest of the clamp. Repeat process at the other end of the ribbon.

Attach your made charms to each end with jump rings or lobster claw clasps. 
So pretty!

So as you can see here, I got a little carried away in making the book marks.
I couldn't help myself! All the ribbons are just so pretty and compliment the charms so nicely.
See a ribbon that you like? Click any of the links corresponding with the numbers above.

1. Plum Fancy Trim    2. Pink Satin     3. Sweet Shop    4. Rhinestone Fancy Trim     

5. Mint Green Burlap     6. Sweet Shop      7. White Fancy Trim     8. Emerald Green Satin    

9. Sweet Shop    10. Tropical      11. Pink Burlap     12. Sweet Shop 

Find your favorite Gwen Studios Ribbons at your local Walmart and online at Walmart.com!

Head on over here  to see more creative idea's to make with ribbon!

All about Artist Trading Cards

 People ask what is so great about "Artist Trading Cards" all the time.

I just have to say that they are fun to make and create! I consider them Miniature works of Art!
Artist Trading cards are also known as ATC's.

Size:
They must be 2.5"x3.5" or 64x89mm. And are meant for trading ONLY. Usually through the mail via various yahoo groups or in person at a gathering. (The art card above was created for a annual Fiskateer event where everyone made 50+ cards with our photo on the front and our personal info on the back.)

Materials:
ATC's usually are made of a sturdy chipboard backing to ensure safe mailing. I like to recycle cereal and cracker boxes for ATC bases. In the past I used to score and cut each card on my paper trimmer. I went through quite a bit of blades this way! 

I have also made my ATC's with painted vinyl, soda cans, fabric, .....
Craft stores carry a line of Trading card sleeves, envelopes and baggies meant to keep them safe till swapped.

There are usually themes for a swap you might participate in. Here the theme was Nesting dolls. And as long as I kept my shape under 2.5"x3.5", I could use any shape. So I created a hand sewn doll that folds out to show to smaller nesting dolls. Go here to see more nesting dolls.

For the Alice in Wonderland swap, instead of making all my ATC's to be the same, I used a few brochures for the new movie and cut out images for each card. Then I accented them with glitter glue and shrink plastic key charms. I accented the edges with a gold leaf pen. See more Alice in Wonderland here!Sometimes the swap host will provide a template of the shape to use. In this case it was a house I printed out and made a template from card board. I hand cut each ATC and covered it with paper, added a vintage packaging tape transfer image, added some wings from a butterfly punch (cut in two) and finished it off with a few rub-ons.

This Bingo card was created with a rubber stamp made just for art cards. Now days you can also find scores of images or back ground stamps in the exact sizing for your art cards.
The butterfly is one of my favorites and I created it using a variety of alcohol inks. 

The theme was Mardi Gras masks. The top piece of the mask was made from the clear packaging some of your craft products come in. You can see the rest of the Mardi Gras masks here.
Here I hand cut women images from fabric and mod podged them to the paper on the card.
I colored one side of clear vinyl with alcohol inks and them stamped the reverse side with a music sheet stamp and staz- on/ The theme was Easter- hence the eggs.

For a fairy tales theme. I stamped a piece of card stock with a Snow white stamp, colored in the parts needed and covered the image with crackle glaze. The rest of the card is covered in vintage inspired wrapping paper, stamped tissue paper and the edges finished with a gold leafing pen.
For the next two Halloween cards, I just accented already great images with glitter glue and buttons. Then I used my FAVORITE pens, Sakura Soufflé pens that turn opaque on dark paper just like magic!

See more Halloween cards here!

For the Witch card, I brushed the raw side of the ATC blank with white gesso, them ran over it with lime green acrylic. Before that had started to set I added one more layer of crackle glaze. The image is just a basic run of the mill photo copy to which I adhered to the card. I rubbed a little of the gesso around the image edges, added some glitter glue and finished with the soufflé pen.

When you are ready to send out your cards, it's important to add the following:

• Your name
• Your city/sate or country
• Name of the swap
• Date 
• ATC number- 1 of 6, 2 of 6, and so on. 

You can all this to the back of each ATC hand or by using
one my of ATC rubber stamps from Blank Page Muse*.
*Save 15% off your order with discount code BPMMichelle

There are many ways to store your art cards. I displayed the Halloween ones on a vacant wall one year for the month of October. I also store them by year in a 3 ring binder using Trading card pockets. These can be found in any store that sells trading cards.

It's nice to browse the book and be re inspired every now and then. :)


If you are interested in participating in some Artist Trading Card swaps, please consider joining our group.- Mixed Media Art Charms and Faerie Garden Swaps.