getting crafty with a ribbon wreath

My friend, Rachel, came to Columbia recently to visit. We had been planning to have a craft day for a while. We both had projects we wanted and needed to work on, so we thought it’d be much more fun with each other’s company.

I saw this super cute ribbon wreath and tutorial on my friend, Molly’s, blog. (See the original tutorial here and Molly’s adorable wreath.)

I’m co-hosting a really fun baby shower for a special mama-to-be, so I had the perfect excuse to make this wreath. (Mama-to-be, if you’re reading, stop right now!)

Our color scheme is yellow, orange and gray, so I made my wreath in these colors. But you could do any color scheme. Molly did a fantastic Halloween wreath. I’ve already got plans for a cute ribbon wreath using Christmas colors and Valentine’s Day colors.

Materials needed:

14 inch foam wreath form (I accidentally grabbed one that was more squared off with hard angles rather than a round wreath like Molly and Rachel used)

12-15 spools of ribbon in your color choices (I just grabbed all the ribbon I could find in my colors because Hobby Lobby was having a 50% off sale)

Hot glue gun and lots of extra glue sticks

First, choose a color to use to use as the base color. Cover your entire wreath by wrapping the ribbon around the foam wreath form. I used hot glue on one end and then wrapped the whole wreath. I hot glued the other end when I had wrapped the whole wreath. I chose a very soft yellow (it looks white in the photos) as my base color.

Take the remaining spools of ribbon and cut them into 5-6 inch strips. I had a variety of ribbon- mostly grosgrain- but some had wire, some was satin, so the different materials were at varying lengths. (The wire ribbon really did the best, but the grosgrain looks the cutest.)

I didn’t get a picture of the ribbon that was cut in strips, but I kept each ribbon separated in piles. The whole ribbon-cutting step took a good forever. Rachel and I started around 2:00 and it was 4:00 before we finished this step.

Once you’ve cut up your ribbon, fold your ribbon in a loop and glue it together.

Make sure to glue it a little above the bottom. You need some space left over at the bottom as a flap so you can attach the loops to the wreath.

Then look at all of your ribbon strips that are now in loops. Blow the hot glue burns on your fingertips and get some pizza. (At least that’s what Rachel and I did.)

Alternate colors, patterns and types of ribbon and start gluing the loops onto the wreath. I put hot glue on the wreath and the attached the loop to the wreath at the “flap.” Make sure the loop/ribbon is standing up on the wreath. And alternate directions, too, to keep it looking interesting.

When I thought I was finished, I went back in and added some of the smaller ribbons to fill in some of the holes to make the wreath look fuller.

I am going to attach a hook onto the back and use a piece of ribbon to tie a “hanger” onto the hook so the wreath can be hung.

I think it turned out really cute! I worked on this wreath from 2:00 until 8:30 p.m., so it wasn’t a small project from start to finish. Fortunately, all of the ribbon was on sale so it didn’t cost much at all! I was so excited about that.

What kinds of crafts are you making this fall?