Dirty Little Secrets ..... Ribbon

Well, here we are starting off another week. Mondays seem to come around so quickly, or is it that the weekends pass to quickly? Whatever the case, we have a busy schedule ahead as we tackle more purging projects for Lent, squeeze in workouts for our February Pledge to Run, and prepare for company arriving on the weekend. Let's hope for good health and sunshine to get us through.

The purging process has been hugely successful around here. I have been getting through a lot of dark, dreary spaces that otherwise I would have been avoiding. Sadly, one of those spaces is my craft room. It is in the basement, shared with seasonal storage and a lazy cat. But I have plans to create something special down there ..... once I find the floor. Boxes and boxes have already left for the donation pile in the garage, but there is still so much to go.

Although I have been trying to leave organizational projects until the purge project is complete, there is something that needed my immediate attention. 

So I guess it is now time for another installment of my Dirty Little Secrets.

Pssst! ..... I have a secret ..... a dirty, little secret .....

RIBBON! RIBBON! RIBBON! RIBBON! RIBBON!

I seriously looooovvve ribbon. As you can see, there is quite an assortment but most are Christmas themed. I love to decorate my holiday trees with ribbon, and I usually change my colours/theme each year, so that leaves a lot of discards. Plus, making wreaths for a living lends itself very easily to developing a slight ribbon addiction. Enough said, I have a problem. 

So again, I'm in the basement, so sorry for the poor lighting/pictures, but this gives you an idea of what I'm dealing with.

I took out all the full rolls and stored them on this metal rack for now. Then I grabbed a container for all the bits and pieces left over from projects. I just can't get rid of them, so I'll need to address that later on. Then I started untangling the huge balls of beautiful ribbons and wound them onto left over spools.

A few years ago, I had made these giant bows for my family room Christmas tree ..... Yikes! I have since moved on, but there are at least a dozen of them with approximately 3 yards of ribbon each.  I'm sure I can find another project for this ribbon, so I decided to disassemble them.

Instead of adding to the odds and ends pile, I ironed the ribbon and rolled it onto scraps of cardboard. I marked the end with the measurements for quick reference. It makes the ribbon more useful, neater and easier to store.

So for now, I have it all sorted and up on a shelf rather than scattered and tangled in bins. But I will have to revisit my ribbon section for deeper organization at a later date. I have visions of something like this that I found on Sew Woodsy.

http://sewwoodsy.com/2012/11/craft-room-tour.html

But right now, it's crazy busy wreath season around here, so it will have to go on my dream list.

Does anyone else get slightly giddy when strolling the ribbon aisles? Do you have a super-duper idea for storing tidbits and ends of ribbon? Let me know!

Have a great day!