Ribbon Rosette Tutorial with Kathy Clement

Hello Ribbon Lovers everywhere!  It's Kathy here today to share a really quick and easy tutorial with you . But first, let me ask you, did you all survive Black Friday?  Did you shop 'til you dropped or stay home and play with ribbon and paper?  If you are getting started on your Christmas card stash, I think you'll really enjoy today's Ribbon Rosette tutorial.  This is a really quick and easy way to add elegance, texture and shine to your cards, and these rosettes make great gift toppers, too.  So let's get started!

This is a photo of my finished card.  It is a 6" x 6" top fold card made with papers from Graphic 45's new Christmas line, Twelve Days of Christmas.  I wanted to create a card that had the appearance of a gift wrapped package.  And even though it was pretty without the rosette, it did look a little unfinished.  So I grabbed a spool of gorgeous Silky Crush Champagne Ribbon and some vintage Chloe Natural Crochet Lace and went to town!

The first thing I did was to use 1/4" Scor-Tape to secure my 1 1/2" Silky Crush Champagne ribbon around the center of the card.  I then placed another line of Scor-Tape above and below the ribbon and added the Chloe Vintage lace.  This ribbon and lace combo is especially elegant and wonderfully vintage.  I tapped a white doily with Antique Linen Distress Ink and glued it to the center of my card as a base for my ribbon rosette.

I cut a 24" length of the Silky Crush Champagne ribbon and then sewed a double row of gathering stitches along one side, about 1/4" apart.  I know all sewing machines vary, so check your instruction guide before you attempt the following.  My Brother sewing machine said to lower the tension for the bobbin thread in order to create a gathering stitch. Then I gently pulled on the bobbin thread while gathering the ribbon together.  When I had the ruffles as tight as I wanted them to be, I simply joined the right sides together and whip stitched them closed.  Then I trimmed off any excess.    I followed this same procedure with the Chloe Natural Crochet lace, but I just stitched one row of gathering stitches.  I used my glue gun to join the two rosettes together and then added a sparkly amber button that was threaded with Christmassy Gold Metallic Baker's Twine.  This tidy little bundle was glued together with my glue gun and then added to the center of the card.

I've seen rosettes like this sell for close to $3 apiece in craft stores, but you can make your own in about 10 minutes for mere pennies.  And, you can theme them to whatever color works best for your project.  How cool is that? I did make a custom envelope for the card, and I finished the inside as well:

I just couldn't help myself...and had to add Chloe Natural Crochet Lace to the inside as well. I hope you will try making these easy rosettes yourself...and of course, I hope you will use gorgeous ribbons, lace and Baker's twine from Really Reasonable Ribbon when you do. And, if you'd like to visit my Kathy by Design blog for more inspiration, just click on the link. Thanks for stopping by!  Cheerio, kathy