Ribbons and lace have long been a part of scrapbooking. If you look in your great-grandmother's scrapbooking album, you might find tucked away a bit of the hair ribbon she wore the night she met your great-grandfather at the town social. If you look at great-aunt Mimi's memory book, you might find great-uncle Fred's World War I medals and ribbons.
More recently, ribbon has come to be used in many, many more ways than simply being saved for their own sakes. Now they are design elements! Ribbons can be used, for example, to tie a color scheme together, to finish a tag, or to "fancy up" a photo mat. It seems like every new magazine I page through has yet another new spin on using ribbons for scrapbooks, and the creative energy is really invigorating!
The following is not an exhaustive list of the ways to use ribbons, by any means, but it will give you a leg up on starting to use this fun embellishment for your pages.
Probably the most common use of ribbon is in the hole at the top of a tag. Tags can be virtually any size, and the ribbon would ideally be proportional to the tag. In this layout, you see an accent piece made with two tags mounted on patterned paper and cardstock. The tags are finished with yellow-and-white ribbon.
This particular layout uses two different elements that are accented with ribbons; both the photo mat and the border piece are embellished with peach-colored organdy ribbon.
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Organdy ribbon is adhered to light peach cardstock. That is then overlaid with accent pieces made from green punches, double-mounted on medium peach and green cardstock. |
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The photo mat has holes punched at regular intervals all the way around the perimeter. Organdy ribbon is passed through each of these holes, and tied in knots. |
The simple addition of a ribbon across the width of a page can serve to split a layout into sections - similar to a strip of solid cardstock - or to help fill in dull "white space".
There are any number of ways to use ribbons as embellishments for photo mats. Here are just a few.
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A metal heart-shaped ribbon charm adorns the knot of the "loopy" ribbon at the edge of this photo mat. |
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A simple, elegant ribbon adds a classic touch. |
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Look for beautiful ribbon charms that can add a little spark to an otherwise plain ribbon. |
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This photo mat features a smidge of ribbon looped over a photo mat's corner, plus a metal heart charm tied on with string. |
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A photo mat intended for a photograph of a baby is an excellent candidate for unusual embellishment, as with these miniature safety pins. |
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Rub-ons can work very well for decorating satiny ribbons. |
Finally, you can use ribbon to alter or embellish other page accents. In this example, I wrapped red organdy ribbon around a slide mount. That became a frame for my daughter's face, to draw attention to her expression after being caught writing on herself with a pen (the little scamp!).
I hope this section has helped spark a bit of interest in using ribbons on your layouts, and perhaps inspired you on some new uses of this timeless scrapbooking material.
Create a layout using ribbon as an accent piece, using either one of the ideas presented above, or an idea of your own.
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