Our Hopeful Home: Hand-Stamped Drop Cloth Ribbon Tutorial

August 28, 2013

I'm calling it

Royal Ribbon.

Wanna know how I made it?

Start with one handy-dandy canvas drop cloth from any one of your favorite big-box hardware stores. I already had one from Home Depot. Just prewash it, throw it in the dryer, and you're ready to go.

Iron it, then make a small cut with scissors at whatever width you're interested in making your ribbon. Initially I made the small cut at the one and a half inches wide mark. (You'll see why in a minute.) Cut the slit with your scissors about an inch in length from the edge of the cloth, then let her rip! Just pull the fabric apart at the ripped area, all the way up the fabric till you get to the other end. And voila, you end up with this.

Well, you do have to stamp it, of course. And stamp it I did, with these.

And these.

All you need are an ink stamping pad, gel stamps and a stamping block to secure your stamps on.

I just love the French-y twist of the stamp pack I found at Michael's for a song. Really, it was on clearance for $2.39. Oh, and don't worry about the strings (there'll be a lot). Just gently pull them off and the fabric should automatically stop unravelling. I love the fringe you're left with.

Since I'll be selling this at my show next weekend {Festival of the Vine in Geneva, IL Sept. 7th-8th, be there or be square} I decided to wrap the ribbon around some vintage thread spools I picked up for a quarter a piece in a great junkin' store in Des Moines, Iowa a few weeks ago. (Hence the one and a half inch width, it fits the spool perfectly.)

I even tried my hand at making some faux grainsack ribbon after reading about it on Homeroad.

I made this one three inches in width, and then used two paint pens (regular and thin) to draw the lines. I can't say that I'm in love with how it turned out. Maybe it's because I really wanted to make one with maroon lines but Hobby Lobby did not have a paint pen anywhere near that color. And I don't trust myself to freehand it. So I bought blue instead. It's another traditional grainsack color, just not what I decorate with personally. So I ended up liking Susan's better. What do you think?

Overall I'm thrilled with the outcome on the narrower stamped ribbon, and can't wait to use it for gift-wrapping as well as for home decor projects.

Any questions? You can leave them in the comments or e-mail me directly. I'd love to know if you've ever tried your hand at this and how it turned out. For now, I'm happy with my little Royal Ribbon project!

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xoxo