Jingle Belles - Tie a Holiday Ribbon Around the Christmas Tree

Ribbon.  Ribbon.  Who has ribbon?  Funny how I was recently thinking about how I could use some of the ribbon that I've been stashing away.  Seriously, I have probably spent a small fortune on pretty ribbon.  It's part of the "I'm going to need this someday and it's not that expensive" mentality. Until, of course, you sit back and look at all that you've accumulated.  Not to mention ribbons that have been rescued from gift packaging, out-of-fashion craft projects, hang tags, etc. 

So when I started pulling out possibilities of ribbon to use I came across these stamped and cut out pieces of mandalas.  These, believe it or not, were probably my first introduction to serious rubber stamping.  Anyone out there remember the Carol Duvall Show?  I don't remember who the guest was, but they did a segment using Outlines stamps and for whatever reason, I wanted to give them a try.  

I searched online for a source close by.  Wasn't it lucky that a brick and mortar store not too far from the University of Delaware, where my daughter was going to school at the time, carried Outlines stamps - along with a plethora of others.  She was a freshman at the time and I would often drive down on Friday afternoons to bring her home for the weekend.  So a plan was hatched.

Being younger, and much more adventurous back then, I planned on leaving early one Friday to check out that store before she was done with her classes.  It was called White Swan Stamps and it was located in New Castle, DE.  Up until then I had never been in a store entirely dedicated to one craft.  (Okay, if you don't count fabric or yarn stores.)  They had a whole selection of these mandala stamps to choose from and I built a small pile of them in my basket and only flinched a little when they tallied up my bill.  I was hooked.  

I stamped and cut out scads of them in all different colors.  I've only shown what I found in red, green, and white.  Like I said, there were different mandalas, and they could be mixed and matched and layered.  I know I used them for Christmas cards one year and had all those extra pieces left.  I wanted to use some of these again and started thinking about how to incorporate ribbon.  

I found a salvaged length of this pretty red ribbon and got out some red metallic embroidery floss.  Using a pin, I punched holes on the green piece in each segment. Then I "sewed" the ribbon into puffs all around.  I searched for a background paper that wouldn't compete too much with the ribbon mandala.  

Not only is the ribbon dimensional, the mandala segments are all at different heights.   I'm very pleased with how this came out.  I'll have to think about using more of these - in all the colors, for all occasions.

Want to see all the other ribbony creations?  Join me by clicking here to visit the Jingle Belles.