Elegant Soiree Morning Cup & Ruffled Ribbon Tutorial

  Well we're still on the mend here at my house after the plague swept through over the weekend.  My oldest stayed home from school today but hopefully all will be well tomorrow.  Stomach bugs are not for the faint hearted (or weak stomached) let me tell you!  I hope to get back to my stamp room to make some new projects to share but for now here is the second card we made at my stamp club last Tuesday (I hope none of you ladies got sick from being at my house!!).

 
  I love the color combination of the Elegant Soiree DSP and decided to pair it up with some ruffled ribbon and the Morning Cup stamp set.   This card is pretty straightforward but a few neat tips that I showed my stampers the other night really make it a great card (if I do say so myself).  First, we used the Clear Mount version of Morning Cup so that we could mount the teacup & the teapot on the same clear block so you only have to ink up once and your 2 images are always perfectly aligned.  This is a great way to cut down on your time if you're stamping multiples (think Christmas cards).  The images were colored using the Baja Breeze marker as well as a little tiny pearl on the flower on the teacup (probably hard to see in the photo but it's there!).

  The next cool thing is the little "tea"rific label.  Did you notice it's the same shape as the Decorative Label Punch just a little smaller?  It's really easy to make this little mini tag using the Decorative Label Punch.  Just stamp your sentiment on a narrow scrap of card stock (I think I used about 11/2" strip).  Line up your cardstock in the punch so your sentiment is on the shorter side and punch.  You'll get a cute little tab and it's the perfect size to highlight those smaller sentiments that would otherwise get lost if you didn't jazz them up a bit.

  Now on to the fun ruffled ribbon...  The new seam binding ribbon is great for this technique as it doesn't add a lot of bulk or weight to your card so it will still mail easily.  Start with about 12 inches of ribbon if you want it to go across the wide part of your card.  Add a loose knot to the very end of one side.

Don't mind my messy scrap paper- Remember I can't throw anything away!

 Then fray the end without the knot so you can see the individual strands that make up the ribbon.

This is kind of what my hair looks like in the morning!

 Now grab just a few of the the strands that are sticking out in the middle.  Hold them tight and just pull down slightly on the rest of the ribbon.  You'll see how it begins to gather. 

  Keep holding tight to the few long strands and work the gathering all the way down to the end.  The knot helps keep the strands from pulling all the way out (ask me how I figured that one out!) as well as leaving a little bit of flat ribbon to adhere behind your DSP.  Keep working it all the way down.  You can always adjust the gathering to suit your tastes by making it tighter or pulling it back to make it looser.  If you want it more ruffled than this you'll have to add to your original length to make sure you have enough.  Hope that was as clear as mud!

Gorgeous!

 To keep your ruffled ribbon from shifting on your card front you can add a bit of SNAIL to the DSP and the ribbon will stick right on.  Hope this was helpful!

  Thanks for looking!  Happy Stamping!


Stamps: Morning Cup

Ink: Soft Suede, Baja Breeze (marker)

Paper: Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Very Vanilla, Elegant Soiree DSP

Accessories: Seam Binding ribbon, Decorative Label punch, Pearl jewel