Scrap Your Stash - Ribbon Challenge

I am so happy to share this project with you today!  When I was at the CROPPED Event this last year I met Britten, who is a dear friend of Megan Elizabeth's and has worked on Megan's Design Team.  Now Britten is starting a new adventure with the website Scrap Your Stash.  She is encouraging us to stop shopping and start using what we already have.  Make sure to check out the Scrap You Stach Facebook page.  

Tell them Shawn sent you!

Britten asked me to be her Guest Blogger for her first challenge

The Ribbon Challenge

Make anything you want, but you have to use ribbon from you stash.

Fist, I would like to introduce you to my ribbon stash

You can see that at one point I even tried to organize it by cutting an opening in a photo box that I already had and feeding the ribbons out of the box so I could see all of the colors I had.  The the stash grew and just shoved the extra stuff in the back of the box thinking that some day I would get time to alter another photo box and have all of the ribbons visible again.

For this project I wanted to think of something different . . . anyone could show you a card or scrapbook layout with some ribbon on it . . . been there, done that.  Then I started to think about how summer is coming and how my niece LOVES to have a cute pair of flip flips to wear in the summer.

I had the plain pair of flip flips that I wanted to do something with to give to her as a gift.  What if I braided some ribbons to embellish the straps of the flip flops?

I grabbed 4 colors of ribbon from my stash and started to do this fun braiding technique for a rolled 4-ply braid that I found HERE.  I am going to try to do my best to explain it to you, but if you want to refer to the link I used to learn this technique then you have that information also.

To start with I would recommend using a piece of foam core or corkboard as a work surface to pin the ribbons to.  Cut 4 ribbons about one-third longer than the desired overall length that you want the finished braid to be.  Pin the ribbons in sets of two at right angles from each other in the manner shown below.  In the directions I will refer to the two ribbons in a set as "partners".

If you want to do a quick slip stitch to hold the ribbons in place that might be a good idea.  I did not do this on mine, and when I went to take it off the board I almost lost some of the weaving.

I forgot to take photos with the first few rows of the weave, so the next photo comes in after I had already done about an inch of work, but you will get the idea.  

ROLL/FOLD the top two partner ribbons down at a right angle as shown in the photo below.

See how the ribbon is folded forward, not twisted like you might do for a normal braid.  So now we take the ribbon on the far right and FOLD it under the first ribbon, weave it up over the second ribbon and then weave it under the last ribbon.

So now it looks like this . . . 

Now let's do it again with the far right ribbon . . . FOLD that one under the first, and over the next one and then it will be at a right angle aligned with it's partner.

Notice how I keep pinning things as I go?  This helps to keep the tension in the braid so that things don't come undone, especially if you don't have time to do the whole braid in one sitting.

So now you just repeat that all again by taking the top two partner ribbons and ROLL/FOLD them at a right angle down, then take the far right riboon, which would be the yellow one in the photo above and roll/fold it under the purple, over the teal and under the blue.

It is kind of confusing until you get the hang of it.  Again, if my photos are not clear, try looking at this tutorial.  

Once the braid is done I would recomend doing some stitching at the end of the braid so that things don't come undone.  I did a small zig-zag stitch with my sewing machine on both ends.

Once the braid is complete I wanted to make it lay nice on the straps of the flip flops.  I knew that if I did a sewed an angle in the ribbon it would give it a nice point like I wanted at the front, but I did not want to just sew on the ribbon and risk messing up all of that work, so I cut a piece of scrap fabric that was the same width as the completed braid, folded it in half and sewed a few stitches in that at an angle as shown below.  

I drew a black line over the stitching to make it stand out for the photo. 

Then I opened that up and tested to see how it fit on the straps of the flip flop

PERFECT! 

That is JUST how I wanted it to look

(the painter's tape is just to hold the fabric while I took the photo)

So now I just folded the braid over and used my tester piece of fabric as a guide to sew a few stitches into the braided ribbon.  The picture below shows the ribbon once it was stitched.

Now it is time to pull out the hot glue gun and adhere the ribbon braid to the flip flops.  I started with just a little bit of glue right at the front of the straps so I could line that seam in the ribbon up with the center of the straps.  Then I added just a little glue at a time and pressed the braid down into it.  I did it in sections of about an 1" to 1 1/2" so that I could line up the braid before the glue cooled off .  I didn't want to be sticking it down and then pulling it back up to re-align things.

If you don't want any of the stitching that you put at the end of the braid to show you can roll that part underneath the ribbon as you are finishing gluing the last part down.  The end of the braid goes so close to the main part of the shoe at the end of the strap, so it helps to hid any stitching you might have done at the end anyway.

And there you have a finished pair of flip flops all ready for summer!

Think of alll of the different color combinations you could make!  You could give new life to an old pair of flip flops, or wait for one of those good sales where some stores sell flip flops for $1 a pair.

I hope you enjoyed this project and that it gives you some ideas 

for new ways to use the ribbons that you 

already have in your crafting stash!

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Shawn Mosch is the mother of the family that created the website MyCutSearch.com, a searchable database of images found on Cricut cartridges.  She enjoys sewing, crocheting, cardmaking and scrapbooking.  If it is a Disney themed craft project then you REALLY have her attention.  Shawn’s shares her love of crafts on her blog, http://craftychicsblog.blogspot.com/