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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Distressing Ribbon

I have been collecting old ribbon for some time now.  Some of it is past its prime.  So I have played with washing it and then rolling it all up into a ball to dry...and look at the distressed effect!
This is a pale blue acetate ribbon.  After hand-washing with soap in cold water, I twisted and balled it all up to dry.  This achieved a really soft worn appearance.  It still has the satin shine though.  The fibers are raised.

I tried this process again with some old pale yellow gross grain ribbon that was 2 1/2" wide. 
Not sure I like this as much.  The ribbon dried stiff.  The process did achieve a really cool worn effect though.

The next ribbon is 5/8" black satin and it has a company's name printed on it in gold.  I washed the ribbon in cold water with soap and scrubbed lightly to take off the company name.  Then balled it up and let it dry.

This came out nice.  The ribbon is soft and has a little gold flecks in it left over from the old name. 

So, what am I going to do with all this, wrap packages, make flowers, sew on cards, tie off tags, lots of uses.

Try it.

Valerie

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