Dinosaur Softie

Rawr means I love you in dinosaur and what’s not to love about this sweet dinosaur softie?

It’s made with soft minky so it’s perfect for little ones to cuddle with.
The ribbons add a cute touch and make it a great sensory toy for little hands.

I made this little “rawr-rawr” for my cute nephew who loves dinosaurs.
It was so easy to whip up I can’t wait to make more for the other little boys and girls in my life!

Dinosaur Softie

- Supplies –

- Supplies –

Fabric (I used 1/4 yard Baby Blue Rose Cuddle Minky)
Ribbon (I used 1 1/2″ Sand N Sea Preppy Stripes Ribbon,1 1/2″ Brown with White Polka Dots Ribbon, 7/8″ White With Brown & Turquoise Polka Dots Ribbon, 7/8″ Copen Satin Double Faced Ribbon, 1/2″ Adorn It Dotty Dots Ribbon, 5/8″ Blue Peacock Vintage Ribbon, 3/8″ Aquamarine with White Swiss Dots Ribbon, 3/8″ Dark Royal Solid Grosgrain Ribbon, 7/8″ Brown Solid Grosgrain Ribbon, and 1/2″ Royal Blue Ric Rac)
Fiberfill
Thread
Needle
Pins
Scissors
Paper to draw out a pattern

The first thing you’ll need to do is make yourself a pattern.
Wrapping paper works great! Its inexpensive and lightweight.

Draw a simple dinosaur shape on your paper.

Fold your paper over and cut out two dinosaur shapes at the same time.
My dinosaurs measure about 16″ x 10″ but you can make yours whatever size you want as long as you have enough fabric.

Pin both of the dinosaur “patterns” to the wrong side of the minky fabric.

Cut out your minky around the the patterns.

Minky is messy stuff! So, keep a lint brush handy!

Set your dinosaurs aside and cut your ribbon into 5″ strips.

Prepare your minky dinosaurs by placing the right sides together.

Pin your ribbons to the dinosaur so they are facing toward the inside of the dinosaur body and “sandwiched” between the two dinosaur pieces.
After you sew the dinosaur and turn it inside out the ribbons will be facing out.

Continue pinning your fabric together all the way around the dinosaur pieces.

Begin sewing your dinosaur pieces together. Make sure to backstitch.
I started sewing on the right foot.

Continue sewing all the way around your dinosaur, removing the pins as you go.

Leave an opening so you can turn it right side out.
I left the spot between the legs open.

Turn your dinosaur right side out.
You can use That Purple Thang to help with the tail.
I couldn’t find mine so I used my Easy Turner.
You can also use the eraser side of a pencil, just be careful not to poke it through the fabric.

Stuff your dinosaur with fiberfill, adding just a little at a time.

Fold the raw edges inward and hand sew the opening shut.

Isn’t he cute?

To complete your dinosaur you just need to add some eyes.
I used buttons but if you’re making your dinosaur for an infant you may want to consider using felt or safety eyes instead.

And that’s it!
Now he’s ready to be cuddled!

Now you can make a whole herd of dinosaurs!
Enjoy!

Posted in Baby, Buttons, fabric, For Kids, Minky, Ribbon | 2 Comments

Isabella Tote

The Ribbon Retreat carries a huge variety of patterns and we have some made to go up in our shop.

I love seeing patterns made with different fabrics, and I figure that you do too.
I’ll be sharing these cute items once a week.

This week I have this cute pattern, Isabella Tote.

This tote is so cute and sophisticated! I would love carrying it around on a
weekend getaway, shopping with the girls, and just about anywhere.

The fabric used in this tote is:

Lost & Found by Jen Allyson for Riley Blake

This tote also used our beautiful Saddle Stitch Ribbon lining the straps as an added embellishment.

The beautiful flower on this bag was made using the Posie Pattern.

All of our patterns are currently 20% off. When you purchase yours, make sure to browse our fabric!
We get new beautiful designs often.

Posted in fabric, Patterns | Leave a comment

Organize Your Fabric

I love looking at my fabric!
But it didn’t used to be that way…

Does any one else’s fabric collection look like this?

When I would look for one piece of fabric, I usually had to dig through a few boxes and make a mess in the process. And these boxes had been “neat” before, but let’s just say getting the fabric to the box instead of the craft table is an accomplishment. :)

For my sanity, I needed better organization and found this wonderful idea using foam posterboards. Not only is the organization neat, but it doubles as beautiful decoration. Designer fabric needs to be displayed instead of hiding in a box!

Now I can view all of my fabric easily and take out
the one that I need without disturbing the organization.
I LOVE it!

- Supplies –

Fabric
Foam Posterboard
Xacto Knife
Pencil
Ruler/Cutting Mat (for measurement)
Pins
Iron

The first step is to cut out the foam posterboard. The measurements will depend on your preference and size of your posterboard. My cut outs were about 4″ x 9″.

Using your pencil or pen, trace where you will be cutting on the posterboard.
If you look really closely, you can see my trace lines in the picture below.

Using your Xacto knife, carve the first layer (the paper) along your traced lines.
You don’t need to carve all the way through.

Then bend the posterboard along your carved line.
Basically breaking the foam. Bend the posterboard all the way back.

After the last step, you will have some nice creases in the back of the posterboard.

Using these lines, carve with your Xacto knife through the paper.

Then easily pull the carved piece from the posterboard.

Continue carving until you have the desired amount of foam posterboard pieces.

Before you put on your fabric, it is nice to have the wrinkles ironed out.

Fold your fabric to the size you want it going around the posterboard.
In this example, I folded my fat quarter in half.

Later on, I ended up folding a little bit of the frayed edge.
This allowed more of the white posterboard to show through and hide the frayed edges.

Now wrap your fabric tightly around the posterboard.

Using pins, pin the end of the fabric to the posterboard.
Make sure to do this on an angle so the pin is almost flush with the fabric.

And you’re done!

You can organize these however you like.
I organized mine on a bookshelf with ribbon-filled vases in between.

I just love staring at this shelf now.
And I have another shelf below that – I think I need more fabric! :)

Remember a wonderful place to buy designer fabric is The Ribbon Retreat!
We carry a wonderful selection and have new collections coming in almost weekly!
Plus, make sure to sign up for our newsletter to find out when our fabric sales are.

Have fun organizing!

Posted in fabric, Organization | 13 Comments

New Products

We are always getting in fun new products!

Our newsletters will let you know products that are new and some that are coming. I wanted to show you some of our newest products! They are beautiful and so fun!

Here is a list of some of our newest products!

Glimmer Tulle
2 New Sizes of Satin Rolled Roses
Vintage Rosette Bows – New Colors
High Quality Belt Tips
Brooch Pin/Alligator Clip Combo
Shabby Chic Flowers – New Colors
Sweet Briars – New Colors
Pacifier Clips – 2 Sizes
Crystals & Gems

We’ve added to our flowers collection with these beautiful Pom Posies!

3″ Pom Posy

2″ Pom Posy

We also have these soft Frayed Shabby Chiffon Flowers ready to be made into clips, headbands, and all sorts of fun accessories!

Frayed Shabby Chiffon Flower

And how fun are these Sequin Bows?!
They are 2″ wide and only $1!

Sequin Bows

In our fabric section, we are constantly updating our selection of beautiful designer fabrics.

One of our newest arrivals is Sassy by Sandy Gervais for Moda.

Sock Monkeys are all the craze right now!
The best part of the the monkeys are the socks and we now carry them in three different colors!

Monkey Socks

Make sure to sign up for our newsletters to see what we have coming next!

Posted in New Stuff | Leave a comment

Tulle Headband and a Ruffle Butt!

Dressing up little girls in ruffles and bows is fun any day and Valentine’s Day is no exception!
Little girls and ruffles go together like peanut butter and jelly, am I right?

This outfit and headband are perfect for Valentine’s Day, but don’t worry, you don’t have to wait until next year to make one for your little princess.

You can customize them for any occasion!
Think green tulle for Saint Patrick’s Day, sweet pastels for Easter
or even red, white and blue for the 4th of July.

Tulle Headband and Ruffle Butt Pants

-Supplies-

Cotton Baby Pants
Tulle (I used American Beauty, Purple, Red, Rosette and White)
Felt
Thread
Elastic Headband
Ribbon Covered Double Prong Clip
Scissors
Rotary Cutter and Cutting Mat (optional)
Quilter’s Ruler (optional)
Glue Gun and Glue Sticks

There is also a onesie pictured but I’m not going to include a tutorial for it because it was a huge craft fail didn’t turn out quite how I planned it.

We’ll start with the headband first.

First cut out two 3″ felt circles and about thirty 3″ squares out of tulle.

Take 3 tulle squares of the same color and fold around your finger.
Scrunch up the tulle and hot glue to the felt circle.

Continue gluing the tulle to the felt circle until it’s completely covered.

Line your clip with ribbon and seal the ends.
I did this ahead of time.

Using the glue gun secure the under side the clip to your remaining felt circle.

Glue the two felt circles together, sandwiching the prong of the clip between them.

Trim the ends of your tulle if needed and you’re good to go!

Now for the Ruffle Butt Pants!

Start with your pants by measuring across the bottom.
Double that measurement for your tulle.

For instance, my pants measured 8 1/2″ across so I cut my tulle to 17″.
Cut 3 strips of each color. You’ll have 15 strips total.

A rotary cutter works great for this.
Line your tulle up on your cutting mat and you can cut 3 colors at once.

Layer 3 strips of tulle in each color.
Using your sewing machine sew a running stitch down the center of your first 3 layers of tulle.

Do not back stitch!

Continue with each color of tulle.

Pull the bobbin thread and gather your tulle.
You can use your pants to measure how gathered you want it.

Repeat this step with each color.

Lay the gathered tulle across the pants and pin in place.
Start high so you will have room for all 5 colors of tulle.

Pin all 5 strips of tulle in the order you choose.

Slide the baby pants onto the sewing machine.
Sew a running stitch down the middle of the gathered tulle.

This time you WILL want to back stitch to secure your ruffle in place.

Continue sewing each ruffle onto the pants.

Trim the ends on the inside and outside of the pants.

What a cute little ruffle butt! :)

My girls tell me that they’re much too old for ruffles, especially on their butts!

So, I had to borrow my adorable niece.
Could I ask for a cuter model???

With her ruffle headband and ruffle butt pants she’s ready for whatever Valentine’s Day brings!

Wishing you a hearts and flowers kind of day! :)

Posted in Baby, Hair Bows, Tulle, Valentine's Day | 3 Comments

February Link Party Winner!

And we have a winner!

We had 140 fabulous links in our February Link Party!
If you didn’t get a chance to see them all, check them out!

I entered the numbers into Random.org and got #133!

#133 is Sunflowers and Daisies with Valentine’s Day Small Bows!

Congratulations Sunflowers and Daisies!

Send me an email at shirley@theribbonretreat.com to collect your prize!

Do we need a reminder of what that fabulous prize is?
Of course! :)

Lucky Leprechaun

Cupcake Confection

Dinner Party

Forever Daddy’s Girl

20 Steel Single Prong Clips and 20 60 mm French Barrettes!

I can’t wait to see what you make with your prize! :)

These are all wonderful ribbon mixes using our new TRR Designs!
Click on the links to take you to see more!

Ribbon mixes are awesome because we do all the matching for you!
Each mix will come with a total of 10 yards — enough to make 2 hair bows.
(Although, I can usually get a couple more out of them making smaller bows.)

Thank you to everyone who entered!
I always love to see what you’ve made and can’t wait until next month!

Posted in Link Party | 3 Comments

The Cuppy Cake Dress

The Ribbon Retreat carries a huge variety of patterns and we have some made to go up in our shop.

I love seeing patterns made with different fabrics, and I figure that you do too.
I’ll be sharing these cute items once a week.

First up is this cute pattern, The Cuppy Cake Dress.

It is so cute and perfect for any little girl.

The fabric used in this dress is:

Dessert Party by Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman
Confections for Robert Kaufman
Essential Dots for Moda

This dress also used super cute Polka Dots Ribbon, Jumbo Ric Rac, and Lace for embellishment.

All of our patterns are currently 20% off. When you purchase yours, make sure to browse our fabric!
We get new beautiful designs often.

Posted in fabric, Patterns | Leave a comment

Wrapped With Love Wreath Trio

Tickled pink and happy to say
Valentine’s Day is on its way!

If you’re still looking for a fun Valentine decoration for your wall or door,
give this wrapped wreath a try!

Wrapped Heart Wreath

-Supplies-

3 Wreath Forms (of course, you can use just one)
Fabric
Ribbon
Lace
Netting
Tulle
Ric Rac
Chinese Braid
Yarn
Batting or Felt
Scissors
Pinking Shears (optional)
Rotary Cutter and Cutting Mat (optional)
Glue Gun and Glue Sticks

The great thing about this wreath is that you can use as many
or as little embellishments as you’d like!

I think it would be fun to use maribou, zipper accents, buttons.

The Ribbon Retreat carries lots of fun ribbon and fabric for Valentine’s Day!
I had so much fun picking out what I wanted for my wreath and combining it with supplies I already had on hand.

Some of the fabric I used in my wreath include Adorn It Happy Hearts Happy Stripes fabric,
Adorn It Happy Hearts Red Curly Motif Fabric,
Riley Blake Sew Cherry Pink Cherries Fabric,
Essential Dots Jet Black Fabric, and Essential Dots Christmas Red Fabric

Some of the ribbon I used include the 1 1/2″ Red Solid Grosgrain Ribbon,
1 1/2″ Black with White Polka Dot Ribbon,
7/8″ White with Red Hearts Solid Grosgrain Ribbon,
7/8″ Pink/Hot Pink Biggie Dots Dot Ribbon,
1 1/2″ Hot Pink Moonstitch Grosgrain Ribbon,
7/8″ Pink Satin Double-Faced Ribbon,
7/8″ Red/Pink Pink Passion Dots Ribbon,
1 1/2″ Geranium Zebra Preppy Stripes Ribbon,
3/8″ Red Journal/White Saddle Stitch Ribbon, 3/8″ Black Stripe Ribbon, 3/8″ Black Gingham Taffeta Ribbon,
3/8″ Hot Pink Dainty Stitch Ribbon,
3/8″ Red with Black Swiss Dots Ribbon, 1 1/2″ Black with White Swiss Dots Ribbon, 7/8″ Hot Pink Double Ruffle Ribbon, 1 1/2″ Pink/Black Skull Grosgrain Ribbon, 1 1/2″ Hot Pink Leopard Print Grosgrain Ribbon, 7/8″ Black Stripe Zebra Print Ribbon.

Wow! What a mouthful! Handful?

You know, I’m not usually a big hearts person, but it’s Valentine’s Day and I couldn’t resist!

I started out with a big, beautiful Styrofoam heart shaped wreath.
Unfortunately it was destroyed when I tried to cut it in half!

With my luck, there were no more heart shaped wreaths to be found! I looked everywhere!

I found these wire heart wreath forms in the floral section of the craft store and snatched them up before all the heart shaped wreath shoppers could stop me!

After getting them home I decided to wrap them in batting to give them a fuller look.

I cut my batting into strips. This would have been much easier if I hadn’t misplaced my rotary cutter!

Then I simply wrapped the strips of batting around my wire wreath, hot gluing as I wrapped.

Repeat these steps with the other two wreaths, unless you were fortunate enough to find a coveted heart shaped Styrofoam wreath, then you’re good to go!

Of course you could use a round wreath form and it would be super cute too!

Measure the thickness of your wreath and cut your fabric strips and ribbon accordingly.
My wreath was 5″ thick so I cut my ribbons and fabric strips down to 5″.
Again, a rotary cutter would have been helpful!

Hot glue one end of your fabric strip to the backside of the wreath.
Wrap the strip of fabric around the wreath and secure with hot glue on the back of the wreath.

Continue wrapping and gluing fabric strips and ribbon around the wreath.

The corners are somewhat difficult but don’t worry about making it perfect.
You’ll be adding more embellishments later.

Continue wrapping the fabric and ribbon around the wreath until your wreath is covered.

You can add more embellishments where you have gaps.
Small final touches make a big difference!

Repeat these steps with the remaining two wreaths to complete your trio.

I also added Fray Check to the back of my wreaths.
It’s not necessary but I didn’t want my ribbon to continue fraying.

Decide how far apart you want your wreaths to be and double that length for your ribbon.
For example, I decided I wanted my wreaths to hang about 9″ apart, so I cut three 18″ strips
of red ribbon.

Decide what order you want your wreaths to hang in.
Wrap your first length of ribbon through the top wreath.
Secure the ends with hot glue.

Then wrap a length of ribbon through the top wreath and the middle wreath.
Secure the ends with hot glue.

Wrap the remaining strip of ribbon through the middle wreath and the last wreath.
Secure the ends with hot glue.

After that I hung the wreaths on the wall and positioned them where I wanted them to hang.
This step is optional. I just didn’t want the ends of my ribbon slipping to the front of my wreath.

I also made a bow to adorn the top of my wreath.

I made this bow using the Pinwheel Technique.
You can find instructions for it in the TOTT Hair Bow Instructions.

Yes, that’s a paper clip that you can see there.

The nail on my front door is quite small and I learned the hard way that wreaths will fall and
break if I hang them from a ribbon.

This wreath pretty much takes up my entire door, so it’s actually not hanging from the small nail on my door.
It’s hanging from clear fishing wire and secured on the top of my door with duct tape! Tacky or genius?
You know, I really don’t care as long as it works!

For now my lovely wreath trio is hanging on my front door,
but there are lots of places it would look really cute!

Where will you hang your trio of wreaths?

Will you hang it on a wall?

How about on a window?

Will you hang it on a fence?

Or how about a silo? :)

Will you hang it from a tree?

Or maybe from a brick?

Wherever you choose to hang your wreaths or even if you give your wreaths away as a gift enjoy making your wreaths and wrapping them with love!

Posted in Crafts 4 Home, Lace, Ribbon, Ric Rac, Tulle, Valentine's Day | 4 Comments

February Link Party

Love is in the air!

The theme for this month’s Link Party is Valentine’s Day,
and I am so excited to see all of your wonderful creations!

Link up any of your awesome bows and crafts! There is no limit.
Our only requirement is your submissions must have products that are available at The Ribbon Retreat.

Would you like a chance to win some awesome stuff?
Okay! :)

Each submission has a number attached to it. At the end of the link party, I will choose a random number through Random.org. And that number will be our winner of…

Four Ribbon Mixes and Hardware!

Lucky Leprechaun

Cupcake Confection

Dinner Party

Forever Daddy’s Girl

20 Steel Single Prong Clips and 20 60 mm French Barrettes!

Phew, that’s a lot of stuff!
Isn’t it all so cute!

If you need these beautiful ribbons now,
click on the links and they will take you right to the ribbon mixes. :)

The Link Party will run from today until Saturday, February 11th at 12 midnight.
The winner will be announced on Monday, February 13th here on the blog and on our Facebook page.

Some tips on linking:

If you do not have a blog or website to take photos from, the link system will allow you to add photos from a photo hosting website such as Photobucket or Flickr. Just click the middle tab when the pop up box comes up and add the URL for that photo.

Linking from Facebook will work as long as you take the off the https:// at the beginning of the link. Then you will need to choose a photo from your computer (the very right tab in the pop up window.) Let me know if this isn’t working for you.

The “Name” part can either be your name, or the name of your craft. Either one works!
I just wanted to let you know so you’re not like me and put your own name when you mean to have a name for the craft. :)

After you’ve linked up your craft, make sure your link works. If you are having troubles with it, send me an email at shirley@theribbonretreat.com.


Posted in Link Party | 2 Comments

Fabric Heart Decor

Designer fabric is so beautiful that it can be used as art in addition to sewing crafts.

I loved the line Chemistry by Bunny Hill Designs for Moda and had to frame it somehow.

The hearts were obviously my #1 choice, but you can do words such as LOVE, XOXO, KISS,
and so much more!

There are a few different ways to get the same look I have in my Fabric Heart Decor,
so I will show you the steps I took.

This is such an easy project, you definitely have time to get some cute decor up for Valentine’s Day! :)

- Supplies –

FabricChemistry by Bunny Hill Designs for Moda
Solid color fabric – I used leftover Muslin.
Sewing machine or Needle and Coordinating Thread
Fabric Marker
Iron

To get the shape of my heart, I went to google.com and searched for “heart clipart.”

Then I looked through the images and found the shape of one I liked best.

Copy and paste the image into a word document, where you can increase or decrease the size of the heart. You can also copy and paste as many of the hearts as you need in different sizes.

Cut our your hearts and use them as a pattern to trace on your fabric.

I traced my shapes using a Vanishing Fabric Marker.
I love it, because the marker part will vanish all by itself and no washing is needed.
The Ribbon Retreat carries them too, so throw it into your fabric order. :)

Once you’ve traced the amount of hearts that you want, cut them out.

Now that we are finished with our hearts, we have to cut our solid color fabric to size for our frames.

I cut two pieces of my muslin, one 4 x 6 and one 5 x 7.
I used the frame mat as a pattern.

Press your solid color fabric in half, as well as the hearts that will be going on it.
Make sure to fold it in the direction you want when it is framed.

Take your pressed heart and solid color fabric together,
placing the folds on top of one another and pin.

This next part you can easily do by hand.
I used my sewing machine to be quicker.

Start your stitching about half an inch above the heart fold.
I didn’t start mine high enough, I think. I may have to go back and fix that. :)
Remember to back stitch.

Stitch all the way down the fold and end half an inch after the end of the heart.
Again, back stitch.

When you’re done stitching, take the fabric to your ironing board
and press out the folds we created earlier.

And we’re done and ready to put in our frames! :)

If you don’t have glass in your frame to hold up the heart sides,
you can use adhesive like the GlueGlider Pro to hold up the fabric.

I love how they turned out and it was such an easy craft.
Have fun!

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Posted in Crafts 4 Home, fabric, Valentine's Day | 3 Comments