Christmas Ribbon Wreath

Hello, and welcome to my first post!

They say necessity is the mother of invention. In our case we needed a big beautiful wreath to grace the door of our new home. When I saw this one over at Better Homes & Garden I fell in love with the concept and decided to adapt it to a Christmas theme.

Here's the final product! I think it turned out swell.



If you are interested in making one yourself you will need:

• two 18-inch-diameter wire floral wreath frames (about $2 each at Jo-ann's)
• 1-1/2-inch-wide bias-cut silk ribbon

*learning moment* I had no idea what bias-cut meant. Luckily my mom was shopping with me at the time and basically it's anything that will stretch. She said that a jersey-type cloth would have worked well too.

• Sewing needle (I used one that was more for tapestry.)
• Heavyweight thread
• 3 yards of sheer wire-edged ribbon (the stuff is EVERYWHERE right now for Christmas.)
• Crafts wire
• Ruler
• 100 yards of 3/4-inch to 1 1/2-inch ribbon or bias-cut fabric strips (YES YOU READ THIS RIGHT! It really does take 100 yards! But like I said, it's everywhere...total cost for 100 yards of ribbon by the way was about $20--everything was on sale 50% off at Jo-ann's and Hobby Lobby.)
• Themed cookie cutter (99 cents at Hobby Lobby.)

Gather all of your supplies.


Take one of the wire wreaths and wrap it with the bias-cut ribbon. This is why it is important to buy something that has a little bit of "give" to it. You will want to sew the two ends together.


Here's the completed form.


Cut the length of ribbon needed to make a large bow out of the 3 yards of wire-edge ribbon and set aside. Cut all the remaining ribbon and/or fabric into 9-inch lengths. If you cut on the diagonal it will give it more dimension. Here is my bag of cut ribbon. It took about 45 minutes to cut all of this.


Attach all of the cut ribbons and/or fabric randomly to the unwrapped wire wreath form using an overhand loop. I had no idea what an overhand loop was but I'm guessing it's something like this:


Here's about 1/3 of the way through:


And here is the finished product, total time about 2 episodes of Glee and 1 episode of the Amazing Race:


Craft projects are a great way to clear up space on your DVR!

When both sides are complete, you sew the two together. You could sew both forms together going on the outside and the inside, but I found sewing the outside only was enough to make it secure.


Take that wire ribbon you saved and make your bow. I'd never done this before either but I guessed that you just gather your ribbon in the middle,

and take a piece of wire around the middle to hold it together and fluff it out a little bit.


Finally, you take your cookie cutter (mine is a star) and attach it and the bow with another piece of wire.


And there you have it! Here's another picture in case you forgot what it looks like completed.


I would say it is one of the easier projects I've completed. The final result is satisfying as well. Be prepared that, if you buy ribbon that is glittered, you will end up with glitter everywhere. I don't mind it but, then again, I'm not the one who usually vacuums!