Custom Ribbon | How to Print on Ribbon

Happy June everyone! How the heck did it get to be June already? I feel as though I was just doing St. Patrick’s Day projects. This month might be a bit “spotty” with posts as I am heading out on vacation for half the month, but fear not, I will (hopefully) be getting all kinds of inspired for new projects from my travels!On to today’s fun and mostly easy project – making your own custom ribbon!

The supplies for this project are simple (I happened to have them all on hand but that’s because I am a craft hoarder).

• White or light colored grosgrain ribbon
• printable heat transfer paper for light fabrics
• a computer and printer
• Iron
• Paper trimmer or scissors and a steady hand

Open up your favorite designing software on your computer (even if it’s just MS Powerpoint or MS Paint). Create the image and text you want on your ribbon in real size meaning, measure your ribbon width and draw a rectangle in your design software to mimic the size of your ribbon. Then type in that rectangle, add graphics, clip art, monograms, whatever you want to “print” on your ribbon. Remember that this is normal 8.5″ x11″ paper, and you’ll need room for borders if you don’t have borderless printing options on your printer, so keep your design in according to those dimensions. My pieces of ribbon were 6″ long and my ribbon was .75″ wide so I drew a rectangle of those dimensions and designed my Southern Craft Academy graphics to size. I was able to fit 11 strips on 1 sheet of paper.

**Most Important Part** You must FLIP your design before you print it. Some printers will do this automatically for you if you select Iron-On Transfer as your type of Paper, but PLEASE check out the preview of your page BEFORE you print to make sure everything is backwards!!

Using your paper trimmer (mine is REALLY dirty from 8 years of use), cut out your strips of transfer paper to the exact size of your ribbon. The reason to make them the exact size instead of trimming off those blank edges is that the transfer paper & process will discolor your ribbon slightly, using the exact dimensions will make the entire ribbon look the same color.

If you are doing this process to a long stretch of ribbon simple but the edges together of your transfer papers.

You’ll want to do these next steps on a table or other hard surface protected by a towel (thus the weird texture background in these photos). An ironing board just doesn’t give you the resistance you need.

Line your transfer paper up on top of you ribbon, printed side down.

According to the package direction iron the paper onto the ribbon.

Once the paper/ribbon has cooled, slowly peel back the paper.

BAM! You’ve got yourself some custom ribbon!!

Or maybe you have a BUNCH of custom ribbons!

There are so many fun things you can do with your custom ribbon including using my Mini Key Fob tutorial to make your own PERSONALIZED mini key fobs!!