Really Reasonable Ribbon February Blog Hop

Good morning, Blogger Peeps! I am guest designing for Really Reasonable Ribbon again! It is time for the February Blog Hop, which starts at the RRR Blog! I have not had a chance to guest for RRR since November! I have a project for you today, plus a RIBBON STORAGE IDEA! Read on!

You should be coming to my blog from the Really Reasonable Ribbon Blog. (For the complete blog list, scroll to the bottom of the post.) After visiting me, hop over to Ginny's Blog next!

Here is a peeky at the RRR February Ribbon Club Assortment. This collection is right up my alley! I have been working with purple, lavender, and green for a few weeks now. I love this color combo! 

I have also been rooting in my stash of Graphic 45 papers and came across Secret Garden (which is retired but can sometimes be found on Ebay) and Sweet Sentiments (which I would guess is retiring this year). Both have purple and green themes. I decided to create a springtime card with the purple and green gingham ribbons in the club.

This card is 6" x 5.5", which is my new "go to" size. I went a bit shabby with the papers, just to keep that vintage feel.

To make this ribbon, I used the older model of the Zutter Bow-it-All and achieved the bow by setting the back pegs at 5" and 9", and the front two pegs at 5" and 8". I created the purple bow on the back two pegs and the green bow on the front pegs - at the same time. Then, I tied the knot using both ribbons, which creates one bow out of two! It takes a bit of "fast hands" to get them all looped and tied, but the result is pretty cool. 

Here is a peeky at the inside. 

The real STAR of this post is my new ribbon storage. This is a long story, so grab a cup of something and put your feet up. About 5 or so years ago, I was using one of those ribbon bags - you know, with the holes that you pull the ribbon through - to store my ribbon. I ended up with this:

It was a mess. I knew that I needed to do something. I had seen some folks winding ribbons around cards, so I did this:

Which was fine as I did not have a ton of ribbon....yet... However, securing the ribbon with bits of masking tape did NOT work and the ribbon kept coming unwound! 

I stored each color family in a large ziplock bag and...

Placed the bags in a drawer cart. Well...

Soon my bags were bursting and one bag per color was soon multiple bags! (Thanks mostly to Bonnie at Really Reasonable Ribbon!) I had lots of ribbon not wound and could never find what I needed. Ribbon Nightmare on Deer Creek Way! I had seen Becca Feeken of Amazing Paper Grace wind her ribbon on the chipboard squares and place them in some drawers. Her method seemed like it would work, but I have so much ribbon!

My friend Sandy came to visit last week and we discussed the problem. What we came up with was to use TWO of the 6-drawer carts (wheels are not attached) to store the ribbon. Each Drawer is 13 x 10 x 3 Inches, roughly (a tad smaller).

I measured each drawer and cut pieces of lightweight chipboard to make sections within each drawer. I ended up with 9 sections, with the three in the middle a tad wider to accommodate any spools I may have. The chipboard is 15" x 3", notched at 5" and 10". The cross pieces are 10" x 3" and notched at 2 3/4" x 7 1/4". My bestie, Sandy, assembled all the inserts, which was such a wonderful help to me!
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The next step was to sort all the ribbon (AGAIN) and wind it onto new chipboard cards. My friend Sandy and my daughter Laura helped get me started, which was also a big help!

The chipboard cards are 4 1/2" x 2 1/2". I secured each ribbon tail with a pin. The gal at Joann Fabrics was confused as to why I need 6 huge packages of pins! I made sure to keep like prints and styles of ribbon together, sorted by color family.

I stacked the two 6-drawer carts, one on top of the other. Now I have 12 drawers of ribbon. (Yes, I do have some overflow of bulk ribbon spools and some types of yarn, and so forth which live in another cart....but don't ask about that!)

I labeled each drawer.

Here is what it looks like now. So EASY to see what I have!

You can see that I need to buy more red ribbon....... {just kidding!}

The pink drawer is full and I must stop buying pink!

The white, ivory, and cream is together, with the lace in another drawer.

One drawer contains seam binding and baker's twine. I keep some extra cards and a box of pins on the top of the cart so I can add new ribbons to the cart, because, let's face it, I WILL buy more!. 

This project represents almost a week of work! I do hope I that this is my LAST visit to ribbon storage!!!

Now, hop over to Ginny's Blog next!

Here is the RRR Blog Hop Order in case you get lost!

Really Reasonable Ribbon's Ramblings

Gloria - YOU ARE HERE!

Ginny

Amber

Bonnie

Karen

Heather

Teresa

Jenn

Dana

Kathy

Cherry

Really Reasonable Ribbon's Ramblings

Cardstock: WorldWin Papers Natural, Bazzill Basics Heather

Designer paper: Graphic 45 Secret Garden (May Flowers, Beautiful Blooms, Seed Fairy, 6x6 pad), Sweet Sentiments (Easter Greetings)
Ribbon: Really Reasonable Ribbon February Ribbon Club
Stamps: Our Daily Bread Designs Sentiments Collection 2
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Clearsnap Colorbox Chalk Dark Moss
Flowers: unknown
Adhesive: Scotch 3M ATG tape runner, Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L 3D foam squares, hot glue