Making ribbon flowers is a great way to use up your collection of pretty ribbons while creating frugal scrapbook page embellishments. Buying flowers for all your scrapbook layouts can be very expensive, but ribbon flowers can be made for just pennies per flower.
Ideas for Making Ribbon Flowers
There are actually several different ways of making ribbon flowers for your scrapbook pages. The most basic way to make a ribbon flower is as follows:
- Cut four equal lengths of ribbon.
- Fold each ribbon in half.
- Arrange the ribbons into a circle, so you have a flower with eight petals.
- Adhere together with glue dots.
- Use a brad, button, or other circle embellishment to give the flower a decorative center.
If you're interested in making a more complicated ribbon flower, here are a few online tutorials that you may find helpful:
- Candice Carpenter has a tutorial on her blog that describes how to make sewn ribbon flowers.
- Little Birdie Secrets shows how to make ribbon flowers with button centers.
Ideas for Using Ribbon Flowers on Scrapbook Layouts
Can't quite decide how to use ribbon flowers on your scrapbook layouts? Here are some ideas to try:
- Frame a special photo with a series of tiny flowers.
- Use a large flower to replace the "O" in your page title or use a smaller flower as the dot in the "i".
- Combine ribbon flowers with a stamped leaf design to make a pretty page border.
- Add a ribbon flower to a tag with your scrapbook journaling.
Can Flowers Be Masculine?
If you love making ribbon flowers, you may find yourself wondering if they are appropriate for scrapbook layouts with more masculine themes. While it's true that the majority of floral designs are for girl scrapbooks, mothers with sons can enjoy flowers too. Here are few tips for incorporating these embellishments into pages:
- Use flowers sparingly. A princess themed layout would probably look fine with 27 different flowers around the border, but you need to show a bit more restraint when making masculine pages.
- Choose neutral colored ribbons. Blues, tans, and creams work especially well for making flowers to use on a boy's scrapbook page.
- Be creative with your flower centers. Buttons and bottle caps make great centers for ribbon flowers with a bit of a masculine edge.
- Try fraying the edges of the ribbon a bit to give your flower a grungy, slightly distressed look.
- Keep in mind that flowers on boy pages are most appropriate if the page also has a springtime theme. Of course, pages of a little boy with his momma can always benefit from a few flower embellishments as well!
Other Uses for Ribbon Flowers
While ribbon flowers are most commonly associated with scrapbook layouts, there are plenty of other ways to use these fun decorations. Here are some ideas for adding flowers to your craft room décor:
- Glue them to magnets to add interest to a plain memo board.
- Use flowers to decorate plain wooden frames to display your favorite family photos.
- Attach them to curtain tie backs.
- Make customized storage containers for colored pencils, markers, decorative scissors, and other scrapbooking tools by adding flowers to the tops of tin cans covered in your favorite patterned papers.
