Archive for the ‘inspiration’ Category

NEW Hand-dyed Silk Ribbons in stock!

Thursday, February 21st, 2019

New hand-dyed ribbons are freshly dyed and restock in the Blue Sky Papers studio! We first started hand-dying the ribbons last year after we were on the hunt for a few specific hues with no luck finding them. We are in love with all things handmade and pride ourselves in doing things the traditional/old fashion way, so dying our own ribbons just made since. 
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The process is tedious but worth it in the end. It has taken us some time to get the combination of ribbon + dye + coloring just right,  it’s been a fun learning process, for sure.

Below is a picture of the white ribbon, unspooled ready to be dyed. Behind it are the ribbon dye samples, the colors we are trying to achieve. This silk ribbon is great because it doesn’t have that raw edge that will fray over time (or really just by looking at it). While a little raw edge and fray can be astheticlly pleasing to the eye and look good in photos, practically speaking, putting a raw edge ribbon on a book that will be handle and used isn’t the best idea. It will quickly become a frayed, tangled, falling apart mess. You don’t have to worry about that with these silk ribbons!

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We mix up our own dye colors using a combination of retroactive powdered dyes, mixed with a bit of vinegar to act as the bonding agent.

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After mixing up the dye colors, you dip the ribbon into the dye batch, you stir it around really well and then let it soak. After soaking for some time (this time can vary depending on how saturated etc. you want the color to be) its time to rinse the ribbon and then dry it. You can hang dry or use a blow dryer.

After the ribbon is dried you untangle it (this can take a minute) and iron out the wrinkles created during the dying/drying process. Lastly, you spool the ribbon back up! Whew, we’re done!

Here we are checking our handy work against the ‘hero’ ribbon samples. Pretty close match! The coloring will vary slightly from batch to batch, but that’s ok because we are humans handmaking, not a machine manufacturing over here.

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Here’s the pretty silk robbons on vow books and a shot of all the colors we offer below!

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DIY Valentines Day Gift with the Leather Love Journal

Thursday, January 31st, 2019

DIY Valentines Day Gift are the best because they are made with love and come straight from the heart! It is also a cheap gift alternative to an otherwise made up holiday! I sound like I don’t like Valentines Day, but it’s the opposite, I love- LOVE and Valentiens day. BUT I do think it should be a bit more simple. Like, how it was when we were kids. We handmade thoughtful little glitter hearts for all of our little friends and the teachers we loved at school.

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My husband and I both have birthdays near Valentines Day, so we usually opt for a chill night in (our tradition is to make a heart shaped pizza) and either skip presents all together or DIY Valentines Day Gift for one another. This year we are going on a big trip for our birthday, so we are forsure DIYing it this Valentines day.

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I thought it would be cute to use the ClaireMagnolia leather Love Journal to take a trip down memory lane and write out our “love story”.  Accompaning each story/memory with pictures I printed out on my polariod printer. The longest part to this DIY was finding the pictures and printing them out. I used colored photo corners to easily secure the pictures in place and wrote a little memory on the oposite page.

This journal is small, but big enough that I have plenty of room to continue to add to our love story through out the years. The love journal comes with the foiled emboss heart already, but you can of course add personalization to it too, intials would be cute!