Welcome to the New Year!

The new year of challenges, that is! This year we're doing things a little differently at Totally Papercrafts. We've split up the design team into two teams (Teams A and B - how clever of us!) to give our members a little more time between challenges. And we've sponsored two sponsors for almost every challenge this year. Yay! That means two chances every week for participants to win a cool prize from one of our wonderful sponsors! :)

It's my turn to host this week. I chose a ribbon theme in honor of our sponsor, Ribbon Carousel. Just use ribbon somewhere on your project to play along with our challenge! (Do you like my ribbon? It's actually vintage seam binding that I bought from The Ribbon Carousel.) Our other sponsor this week is the fab DigiStamp Boutique and I chose one of DSB's adorable teddies from the Louie Love Set.

Supplies: Louie Love Set (DSB), ivory vintage seam binding (Ribbon Carousel), red swirl dp (K&Co), pink heart dp (Bo Bunny), pewter heart brads (Oriental Trading), Copics, kraft cs, charcoal pencil and blender.

I experimented with a new shading technique that I saw on the There She Goes blog: Shading with Pastel Chalk Pencils. I definitely need to practice it some more, but I like how much depth it added to my image.
Lisa

Ribbon Storage

I buy most of my ribbon at Michaels or Hobby Lobby on spools that fit nicely in my stacked ribbon storage boxes from Michaels:


However, I have some ribbon that isn't on a spool. Either it didn't come that way or it's a piece leftover from a spool. One day while blog surfing, I saw an idea for making your own ribbon hangers on a stamping blog. I couldn't remember what they used for their plastic when it hit me - I had a TON of empty GWP boxes. (GWP stamps are "Gift With Purchase" stamps that The Angel Company gives to customers FREE with every $30 purchase.)


I cut off the half of the box that already had the tab with a hole in it, because the hangers would need to be put onto binder rings (from the office supply store). Using my Making Memories slot hole punch (meant for punching holes into cardstock to thread ribbon through), I made 3 sets of double slots, staggered from left to right.

Here's how the ribbon threads through:


Here's what all my ribbon looks like now that it's on the tabs which have been hung onto two separate binder rings:


I only did this with my longer pieces of ribbon. I keep my little scraps on a decorative glass jar that I picked up at a garage sale. I try to use those pieces first to keep the jar from getting too full.

Another cool use for those empty GWP boxes? They are just the right size to hold my MM slot punch!