Monday, July 7, 2008

Retro Ribbon

The very first job I ever had was wrapping Christmas gifts for a women's clothing boutique. Throughout the year the store's signature gift wrap consisted of pink foil paper, burgundy Sasheen ribbon, and an embossed silver medallion seal. No bow, just the silver seal. At Christmastime however, the packages were allowed to have bows. The shop owner, who was almost eighty at the time, was very particular about all aspects of her business and the business of gift wrapping was no exception. For Christmas packages, beautiful deep aqua colored foil took the place of the normal pink and handmade bows were the order of the day.
Most of the bows we made were the pom pom style.
But if the customers were coming back for their gifts later and time permitted, we would make different styles like these...
I liked the way these last two styles looked, but they were tricky to complete. They were the type that I would start making and then have to start all over again from the beginning because of my persistent OCD issue with symmetry.
Seeing these spools of vintage ribbon at the flea market reminded me of all of those afternoons of after school bow making. So of course they had to come home with me.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the way they look in the jar.

Hugs,
LeAnn:)

Unknown said...

You might be surprised to know that the vintage Sasheen can sell well on eBay--I guess buyers want it because the quality is better than the new stuff. I bought a whole entire shirt box full of different kinds of vintage rayon ribbon at an estate sale recently--it really is much prettier than the new stuff!

Elizabeth said...

I love making pom pom bows at Christmas time!! Those colors are so pretty!!