I have a ribbon tip for you today.
You may have noticed that I bind a lot of my mini books with my Bind It All Machine and I love decorating the spine with an abundance of ribbons. It gives a real tactile feel to the book, and it looks simply beautiful. But in all honesty sometimes if you tie ribbon to the binding, this means that you cannot open the pages of the book fully, which can be a little restricting. This can not only be awkward, but can also result in the pages ripping or tearing as you turn each of the pages. We certainly don’t want that to happen.
So I’ve come up with a way around this. Instead of tying ribbon around the binding, tie short lengths of ribbon in knots around the top of a large paperclip. Once you have tied as many pieces of ribbon on there as you wish, simply push the paperclip over the binding. It is barely noticeable, and would be less so if you use silver binding with a silver paperclip, or you could use a permanent marker to colour the paperclip to match the binding if it is a different colour. When I am displaying this book, I can keep the ribbon on the spine, but if I want to flick through the pages I can quickly and easily remove the paperclip and set it to the side momentarily. It also means that you can make one ribbon clip to use on multiple projects, and if you use a variety of coloured ribbons to make a number of ribbon clips then you can completely change the look of your project in an instant by swapping them around.
And for those of you who are intrigued about the mini book in the photo above, don’t worry, I will be sharing it with you really soon – as soon as I get time to photograph the inside.
I hope you like this tip – why don’t you give it a try!
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