Velvet Ribbon

Hmmff! I've been waiting for about 2 weeks since I placed a wholesale order for more velvet ribbon that I've needed for some upcoming etsy or other projects. Finally called them today to ask about said order and it's backordered til next week! Thanks for letting me know, Mr. Company.

I'm hoping to add more painted velvets and some more made-to-match lines soon, just waiting on the supplies!

Etsy front page!

Yep, I'm just a smidge excited- my first front page item. I just finished wrapping my last bits of this ribbon up today. Looks like I'll have to make another lot of it now. Oh, darn.

Ribbons and bits, and a few Swap Sneaks

Well, summer does seem to be coming to a close, not that Michigan had much warm weather. I don't think we had our air conditioning on for a total of 10 days. Still, the anticipation of new school clothes, changing leaves, and steaming bowls of soup has me ready for autumn.

I'll be debuting some new ribbons, ala grungy style, soon. Here are two of the completed colorways: Blackberry Jam and Bonfire.

Also trying to keep on top of my Silver Bella Swaps (so no peeking for those of you in the Vintage Winter Banner or Paper Dolls Swaps)

Winter Banner base is some lovely flocked wallpaper, topped with all sorts of my favorite bits, crepe, poms, glitter, flowers, more glitter....

More crepe used for the paper doll swap, and a fun new use for cupcake liners :)

So much done, yet still so far behind!

Summer UnVacation

Now that the royal heirs to our throne are celebrating their freedom from all things scholastic, the King and Queen (dearest husband and myself) have been finding ourselves dropping into bed almost the same time of the late evening as they do. (Cause those dishes don't wash themselves). Which, of course, does not leave much time for creating. Still, I'll try to keep a few things new things in the shoppe, and share pictures when I can. I did order some pretty new ribbons and laces to dye, and some new types of dyes that may be more colorfast. Also experimenting with ribbons flowers I hope to show off soon.

I did enjoy dyeing a few silks and velvets for the shoppe- hope to make these a permanent fixture in my creativity. Actually, I will dunk anything that is not moving into a dye bath just to experiment lately. Will show off what I find out!

of Lilypads and Tomatoes

Return of Everlasting Gobstopper. I wasn't thrilled with the tickets from the first set so I redid them as tags and flashcards. Only two sets left before these ribbons are gone! I also heard some desire for Earthtones. I imagine I may do more along those lines in Autumn (thinking pumpkins already!), but I did find some inspiration for a few sets now. The first set "Fire and Blueberry" came from a Marjolein Bastin painting...

And a summer set, Heirloom Tomato, with browns, greens, and a dark red...

(Don't look too closely- I could only find apple vintage labels)

And a few Fabulously Shabby Blossoms. I only had enough green to do one set for Lily Pad.

And I am thrilled to say that I hope to add real SILK ribbons to the shoppe soon, too. The roll I purchased to experiment has a GORGEOUS soft hand to it, with nice solid sides unlike some silk bias ribbons. Look forward to some new spring and summer palettes soon!

Memories of Pompeii Spun Sugar Twist

In those short days before children, my husband and I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Italy. I was reminded of the trip recently while talking with my friend Lu, as we both longed for a taste of Limoncello (or Venetian Lemonade, as she puts it). I was inspired to create several lengths of ribbons while reminscing.
Since five ribbons were created, it didn't work for me to put them on the usual trifold card, so I put the "pages" together like a book. Pompeii sky and Lemon Grove ribbons

From the top: Lemon Grove, Italian Pink Grapefruit, Olive Leaf, Limoncello, and Pompeii Sky

I collaged each page before adding the ribbon: Limoncello

(Back of Limoncello) Pompeii Sky

Olive Leaf

Italian Pink Grapefruit

Lemon Grove. This one has a warm spot of yellow fading into white, then green with touches of brown

I have more lengths of the ribbons, but I'm not sure yet if I'll offer more than one card.

Reds and Pinks

Raspberry Lemonade, Pink Flamingo, Cameo and Ivory Each of them uses a different hand dye/paint technique, but they are so pretty together!

Vintage Violette

A sweet friend of mine asked me to put together a kit for her to help her put together a captured fairy jar. She intends on the jar being a tribute to an aunt who loved violets. Here's what I came up with, a vintage violette collection:

A Sugar&Spice Tin filled with purples, buttons, paper flowers, purple tinsel garland, handmade SugarWafer blossoms, crystals, stamen, vintage jewelry findings. Lots of goodies hiding here.

The paper set: glimmered paper lace and tags, antique violet postcard and violet collage images, old music and book pages

I'll let her decide if she wants more ribbon. I had already dyed this "wood violet" yardage before she had even asked, must be we are both desperate for spring!

New style Ribbon

I've been studying different techniques of coloring ribbon, my latest is multiple color application, which results in a varigated appearance. The colors blend smoothly from one area to the next, a very pretty technique! I've been highly inspired by the watercolor paintings of artist Marjolein Bastin, and created some ribbons with a very nature-colored hues.

This first photo shows a big pile of different lengths of dyed ribbons
This one is Rose

And here is the pretty Hydrangea

They'll be posted in the shoppe once they find their perfect Spun Sugar card combinations.

Valentines Spun Sugar Twists

I added another Spun Sugar Twist to my shoppe- this one in a Valentine's theme. This pretty set has two stripe hand dyes (one multi-hued!) and two commercially dyed seam bindings. I twisted the two commercially dyed (red and pink) together for interest.

Here's a shot of just the red/white stripe. I love the softness of the color blending to the white.

And the red/white/pink stripe.

Sugar Shoppe

I'm hoping to add more basic paper elements to the shoppe soon. Items that can be used for your own crafting. I've started with one set of SugarCubes (basic crepe rosettes). This particular set is Marzipan. You can add collage images, glitter, sparkle, buttons, ribbon, and all little fun sorts of items to them, then they can be added to collages, scrapbooks, mixed media, altered journals, banners....

You may have noticed some of the new sections I've added to my shoppe (waiting to be filled). My thoughts on SpunSugar include all sorts of trims, like the vintage red and white ribbon there now, and also I'm experimenting with dyeing both seam bindings and crepe streamers.

Raw Sugar will be small kits most likely with a few SugarCubes, some seam binding, and some Swarovski crystals all in coordinating themes.

Sugar Rush is to be larger kits including those above, plus some vintage images, fancy papers. I have so many ideas floating around my head, but most of them will have to take place after the holidays.

Vintage Trimmings

I'd been eyeing this trim at French General for ages. It's so unique, and truly vintage. And now it's finally mine. All 36 metres of it (that's a lot!). I might be sharing some soon. On the website it appears to be white and red, but the background is truly more ivory colored. I had a hard time deciding between the geranium red, bright petal pink, or ocean blue. Guess I'll have to save up for the next roll.

Sugar Follies

I am almost ready to add some items to my etsy shop. The first batch will include these element sets, which I call Sugar Follies. They will be a grouping of coordinating items that can be included in scrapbooks, altered objects, in home decor, or just plain collecting (something of which I seem to do frequently). These three sets each have a crepe rosette/flower, decorated prima-style flowers -mostly mounted on a manila shipping tag, ribbon or other decorative trim, and mini vintage-style flashcards.
Here is Nutcracker
And Jack Frost

And finally, Snow berries

Playing with glue

Been busy playing with crepe and glue again. I've been so inspired by all the flowers and rosettes I've seen on blogs and etsy I tried a few of my own. The little orange posies on the vintage book pages are very close in design to the pretties made by Eve
The crepe flowers are a combination of types I've seen from many artists and the ribbon flowers are my own design. And they use a LOT of glue dots. I vow from now on to never run out of glue dots, Zip-dry, and crepe paper.