What to do when you buy the wrong ribbon.

We got a 'prayerline' email the other day from our church, and one of the people to pray for was a dear lady who was in the hospital.  I thought I'd send her a little card and let her know how special she was to me, but I had no cards.  Sigh.  So today I made some.  And she'll get one of them asap!

I've been having fun making bookmarks lately, (and have a bunch listed in my shop here), so I stocked up on ribbon at Michael's a couple of weeks ago. 

I didn't realize till I got home, though, that one package (the biggest bunch that I got, of course) was adhesive backed.  They wouldn't work for the bookmarks, but I decided to keep them for other projects.  Like this one.

I pulled out my box of blank cards (you can get these sets at Walmart, Michaels, Chapters), the adhesive ribbon, my flower stash, and a couple packages of self adhesive gems.  The flowers all had gem centers already.

It was super simple - I picked a card base that went with flowers I had, picked the best ribbon to go with it, and added a few gems on some of them.

Why it works: Any design is more satisfying to the eye when you follow the rule of thirds.  Slap that ribbon down with one third of the card on top and two thirds on the bottom and you're halfway there.  Then remember that things groups in threes are often more visually appealing, and it practically makes itself.

Once again, nothing fancy, but nice to have around when you want to send a little note: