Flower Pens

Here's a really easy project to disguise simple looking pens to look like a pretty flower.  I made some for our wedding reception and put it next to the guest pages we had.

Here's what you need.

- a pen.  I use the papermate ball points.  It has to be one where you can remove the top cap.
- a flower (nylon or silk)
- ribbon
- floral tape
- regular tape
- craft glue

Okay, so here we go:

1.  Prepare your flower (nylon or silk).  Cut to about a half inch stem to the place you want resting on the top of the flower.  Sometimes this is the flower base, and sometimes it is about where the leaf is.  Your call.  Add a little floral tape to the half inch stem so it fits in the pen top cap area. (you may want to test the flower in the top cap before you start wrapping -- like after the next step).  Set aside while you set up the pen.

2.  Disassemble your pen by removing the cap, and top cap.

3.  Use a small piece of tape and tape the ribbon to the pen.  The tape should only be on a small part of the ribbon, that can be covered up easily when we wrap the rest of the pen.  Notice that I taped the ribbon about a half inch from where the ink part of the pen is.   This is because if you put the ribbon too close, you won't be able to put the cap back on.

4.  With the end of the ribbon affixed, carefully wrap a layer of floral tape around the pen.  This will cover up the slick area of the regular tape, and the rest of the pen to give a little grip when you wrap the ribbon on.

5.  Next, (you probably guessed), wrap the ribbon around the pen.  When you get to the end, wrap the ribbon perpendicular (so it follows the top edge of the pen).  Cut an extra inch, and fold up as shown on the last photo in the image above.  Hold this with one hand.

6.  With the other hand, take your flower, add a dab of glue to the bottom, and stick it into the hole of the pen (where the top cap once was).  Ta da!  :)

Pretty simple wasn't it.  For show, I took a terra cotta pot that my sister painted, added a small piece of paper in the bottom, and filled it with aquarium rocks.  Then, I stuck the pens in.  You can probably use colored sand too.

Ribbon Lei

With commencement events popping up everywhere, I thought it would be a good time to do a post on this easy and impressive ribbon lei.

Here's what you need to make this:

Ribbon (lots of it. I used 18 yards or 3/4" ribbon here, and probably could have doubled the amount for a nice long lei)
string (I used embroidery string, but a nice sturdy thread will work).
needle

Now for the time-staking part.

1.  Thread the needle with enough string to hold how ever long you want your lei to be, plus extra length just in case.
2.  Sew along one side of the ribbon with stitches about a 1/4" apart.  After every few inches, scrunch up the sewn area, and slowly turn the ribbon onto itself.

3.  Continue with the rest of the ribbon, or until you've reached the length you want.  Tie the ends together, and you're done.

Congratulations to all the recent graduates.  Go Tigers! :)

Kumihimo Braided Bracelet

This kind of braiding reminds me of those plastic keychain weaves that we made way back when.  In slightly more technical terms, according to wikipedia, kumihimo is a form of japanese braiding that interlaces cords and ribbons. It doesn't necessarily require a loom, but the loom is mightly useful.  I've created a template for you to download.

Materials:
ribbon (I'm sure you can use different media such as yarn maybe dmc thread )
kumihimo loom

Download template here.

How To:

- Create a cardboard cutout with the template.  You can glue the template on the cardboard or just trace it.  You can use an exacto knife to cut the circle in the middle, and scissors to cut the little notches.

Okay, so I'm gonna cheat a bit here...





Anyway, the video shows you what you need to know, but the basics are:
1. First,  find the middle of the ribbon (4 ribbons with the of length 4 ft) and tied the ribbons together, then feed the knot thru the hole in the middle of the loom

.
2. Next, attached the ribbon 2 on top, 2 on the bottom, 2 on the left 2 on the right. I also wrote down ABCD on the template so I know what section I'm working on (just a marker).


3. For the actual braiding, remember, top right goes down, bottom left, goes up, turn disc counter clockwise and start again. :-)

4.  You pretty much keep on doing that til you have the length you want.  It actually takes a lot of time to get a decent length, but it looks great in the end.

 5.  Once you've braided to the length of the bracelet, you can make another knot at the end of the braid, I actually, just took half of the ribbons and made a knot around the other half so the knot wasn't so thick.

There you have it, Kumihimo braiding. I love the design it creates.  I think this should work fine with DMC thread, but I haven't tried it. If you try it with DMC or yarn, please let me know how it goes. :-)

Cute Ribbon Flowers made with a Flower Loom

Along with my knifty knitter set, there was a really small loom. According the the pamphlet it's a flower loom. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a shot. Turns out, it makes these really cute flowers that can be used for all sorts of things. I think I'll use them for gift embellishments. You can also use different materials for this loom. Instead of the standard yarn, I'm using ribbon that I found at a near by craft store on sale for 5 for $1 (woohoo).

Here's how you can create the cute flowers with the flower loom.

Materials:

- Ribbon (or yarn) two different colors work best.
- Small Knifty Knitter Flower Loom (peach with 12 pegs)
- Knifty Knitter needle (should have come with the loom)

How To:

1. Tie the end of the ribbon (the one you'll be using for the "petal" part of the flower to the side peg).

2. Loop the ribbon across the loom and around the peg at the opposite end (#6 peg - counting clockwise on the picture).

3. Loop again, across the loom and around the peg at the opposite end (#12 peg - if going clockwise from the side peg).

4. Loop again, across the loom and around the peg at the opposite end (#5 peg).

5. By now you should see a pattern. :-) Continue looping around the peg at the opposite end til you've passed thru 3 times. See the picture of what this should look like.

6. Once you've looped around 3 times, tie the ribbon to the side peg and cut it after the tie.

7. Cut the color of ribbon for the center of the flower to about 1 yard length.


8. Tie one end of the ribbon to the side peg, and thread the other end with the knifty knitter needle.

9. From the back of the loom, insert the needle between the ribbons looped around peg #6 and #7.

10. From the front of the loom, insert the needle between the ribbons looped around peg #12 and #1. Tighten and continue "sewing" between the looped pegs crossing to the opposite opening.

11. Once you're nearly out of ribbon (maybe 3 or so inches), make sure the ribbons end is at the back of the loom.

12. Untie the ribbon (ribbon for center), tied on the side peg.



13. Tie the two ends together using a double knot.

14. Untie the rest of the ribbon on the side peg. Tie these two together using a double knot as well. I also tucked in under the green knot for a cleaner look.

15. Remove the pegs (you should only need to remove half) and remove the flower.


Ta Da, you're done. Aren't they cute?

Check out my other Knifty Knitter projects.

Quick Tip for Ribbon Storing

Here's a quick tip for storing your ribbons. (Unfortunately, they'll only work for the smaller ribbons). Use a pair of scissors and clip a small slit at the end of the ribbon roll (be careful to not cut the ribbon). Then slide the end of the ribbon into that slit. This will hold the end so that the ribbon will not unravel. You can make several slits around the ribbon so you can hold the ribbon no matter where the end falls.

Shoe Box Ribbon Dispenser

For a while now, I’ve been thinking that I need to do something to organize my ribbons and even started to think or some ways to do it. Here’s one that I came up with, out of a shoebox.
The main objective was to create a way to organize and dispense multiple ribbons, while spending the least amount of money. I decided to go with a removeable rod system in a shoebox. It seems to work pretty well and I managed to set it up for under a dollar. Here’s what I did...

First, the parts:

• 1 shoebox (cost: free)
• 1 dowel 5/16" (cost: ~ 80 cents)
• 1 paint stirrer - 5 gallon (cost: free, I just asked the paint person at OSH)
  

Now the work:

1. Cut the dowel to the length of the shoebox.

2. Cut the paint stirrer to have 2 pieces the depth of the shoebox. (doesn’t have to be as deep as shoe box, but I’d go at least about 3 inches.)

3. Drill the hole on the paint stirrer for the dowel. (I used the ribbon as a guide, making sure to give room so the ribbon doesn’t hit the bottom of the box. Also, make sure to check that the dowel fits easily in.)

4. Glue your paint stirrers to the sides of your box. You may want to assemble the whole thing with a ribbon on the dowel so you can gauge where you want to glue the paint stirrers. I placed the assembly so that the ribbon would be about 1/4" away from one edge (long side) of the box. You might not want to have the dowel in when you’re gluing the two sides because if you put too much glue, you can possibly glue your dowel in.

5. Once your glue is dry, go ahead and test out the dowel. Put it in, and take it out. If you have trouble you might need to trim the edge of the dowel just a bit.

6. Put the ribbons on the dowel, and insert the dowel into position.
7. On the long edge of the box (next to the ribbons), I created slits using a box cutter to serve as a holder for the ribbon ends. For bigger ribbons, these slits might not work too well.

That’s pretty much it. If you have room on the other side of the box, you can create an area to store ribbons that maybe aren’t open yet, and do not need to be on the dowel yet. For this, I make two slit holes on the short sides of the box placed at a division point of the ribbon area and where the storage area will be. I put mine about 2 inches from the floor of the shoe box. Thread a piece of ribbon thru both holes and knot, on both sides. Make the knot close to the side of the box to add a bit of tension, but not too much.

That’s it. Just load it up, put the ends of all the ribbons in the slits, and place the cover. You can also decorate the shoe box however way you’d like to make it more decorative.

Happy Labor Day! - Ribbon Bookmarks

Happy Labor Day! Hope you all had an excellent day off. Earlier in the year, I found a post on WikiHow on how to make ribbon bookmarks. Thru the summer, I've made several for gifts to my bookworm friends. Now that I've also learned to bind my own books, I plan to give it to friends as a gift set. :-) (more on the book binding in a later post).



Check out the WikiHow post, the poster did a really great job in showing the step by step instructions to create these awesome bookmarks.