Wildflower Iron-On-Ink Ribbon

Hello! I’m Alison Heikkila and it’s time for me to share Artesprix’s September Blank of the Month with you. It’s white ribbon, which is 2.5” wide, and 10 yards long! You can do a lot with that much ribbon. Last year I made THIS bow using 3 yards of it, and this time, I decided to go with a smaller bow that uses only about 1 yard. For my next few Artesprix projects, I’ll be using products from Pink & Main. I was inspired by their Wildflowers 2 stamps, and they made me think of one of my favorite albums from the past year, Indigo by RM. The album uses cyanotype art, so I thought I’d do my own version with Artesprix’s Sublimation Acrylic Paints and their Black Sublimation Ink Pad. 

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What is Iron-On Ink?
Artesprix Sublimation Markers, Ink, and Paint are specially formulated to allow you to use basic copy paper to: color, stamp, stencil, and monoprint anything you wish and turn it into a heat-transferable design. These designs are then applied to a polyester or polyester coated substrate with heat and pressure. You can use a heat press or a home iron! These designs, through this process of sublimation, will become permanent on your substrates.

Supplies:
Artesprix:
Ribbon
Black Sublimation Ink Pad
Sublimation Acrylic Paint: Blue and White Lightning Medium
Acrylic Stamp Block
Protective Paper
Heat Tape

Other:
Pink & Main: Wildflowers 2
Large Paint Brush (I used a 1”)
Copy Paper
Heat Press or Iron

Step 1: Apply some of the Blue Sublimation Acrylic Paint and the White Lightning Medium to your work surface. Mix them together a bit with your brush, but not too much. We’re going for a wide variety of blue shades, as you can see on my paper. Apply the paint to the paper.

This is what my finished painting looks like. I made two sheets using these same techniques.

Step 2: Cut the papers into strips. I cut these to 2 ¼” but I really should have made them wider to make things easier when I was attaching my Heat Tape to the ribbon and paper. I also opted to not use all the strips, so I can save them for another project.

Pro Tip: I numbered my strips so that I could have a continuous design on my ribbon. You’ll see this come into play shortly.

Step 3: Use the Black Sublimation Ink Pad to stamp the Wildflowers on to your paper strips. Keep the bottom of the strip relatively empty until the next step.

Step 4: Line up strip 1 and strip 2. Stamp a wildflower across the two strips. Repeat as you wish.

I decided to decorate 3 strips. This is how they look when they’re completed. You can see the variations in the blue paint, which I love. Please forgive the acrylic blocks and tape in the photo. Because I used copy paper, it curls after being painted. If you want to avoid this, use a heavier paper or cardstock.

Step 5: Tape one strip of the completed design to the ribbon, on the shinier side. I recommend keeping the ribbon attached to the roll until you’re done sublimating all of your strips.

Step 6: Let’s make our Sublimation Sandwich! Add a layer of siliconized paper to the top and bottom of your Blank. Your sandwich will be: Protective Paper-Colored Image-Blank-Protective Paper. The Protective Paper prevents any images accidentally transferring to either side of your Heat Press or to your home iron. 

Step 7: Let’s sublimate that first strip! We’re going to have our heat press set at 400 degrees for 90 seconds. This is an example of why it’s helpful to keep the ribbon attached to the roll. The ribbon is being kept nice and neat.  

Step 8: It’s time for the peek test. I lifted up part of the ribbon to make sure my design transferred well. It looks amazing, so I can remove the rest of the paper from the ribbon and move on to the next strip. But before we move on…

Here you can see the beautiful variegation of the blue. I love comparing the original art to the finished sublimated piece. The colors come to life once they’ve been heated.

Step 9: I’ve taped the next strip down with Heat Tape. You can see that I have it butted up against the end line of the first sublimated area. Be sure to make your Sublimation Sandwich and then you can press your next strip.

Here is my second sublimated strip. You can see where the 2 strips meet, and while it’s not perfect, it’s not distracting either. I like having the design continuous along the ribbon.

Step 10: Continue the sublimation process until you’ve done all of your strips. 

Here is my finished bow! It’s so pretty, and can be used on lots of things! 

I thought that since I used wildflowers on my ribbon, I’d add my bow to a plant. Wouldn’t this make a wonderful gift? I love seeing how that ribbon shines. What ways can you imagine using this ribbon?  I can imagine using it to wrap gifts, perhaps as a garland, etc. How would you like to get more ideas on using Artesprix’s Sublimation Ink Pads, Markers, and Paint? There’s a Facebook Group that’s just for fans of Artesprix! You can click HERE to join. Also, don’t forget to visit the Artesprix store to see all of the available blanks and bundles, so you can get started with sublimation. You can use my code, ALISON10 to save 10%. Thanks so much for stopping by. Have an inspiring day!