Tucker's Party; Pt 1 - DIY Ribbon Wreath

Our little munchkin turned one about a month ago. Talk about bittersweet. It’s wonderful to have a happy, healthy, growing baby but is it so much to ask for him to slow down on that growing part just a little bit!? He already won’t sit still long enough for me to cuddle him and that makes for one very sad momma!

We decided to have one big party at our new house. Naturally we were then tasked to come up with a theme. The theme we decided on was …

Dr. Seuss!

Ok, maybe I decided on that one and Kev was just like…whatevs.

I adore Dr. Seuss though! And Tucker is too little to tell me what kind of party he wanted, so I figured I better take advantage of that while I can. Ha.

I knew from the start I would probably be making most of his decorations. There isn't much in stores for Dr. Seuss parties and I really hate ordering stuff online. Mainly because of shipping (the hubs wont let me get an Amazon Prime membership, trust me I tried!) and I’m just not the most patient person in the world.

At all.

I want it here and I want it now.

In the end I did make most of the decorations. And I got so many compliments; I thought why not do a few tutorials?

DIY Ribbon Wreath

What you’ll need:

Wreath form

1-2 spools of 1.5 inch ribbon

6-7 spools of ribbon in assorted width and colors (This is a give or take. It takes a lot, however it also depends on how big you plan on making your loops.)

Twine or Jute

Monogram letter (I got mine at Michaels for $2)

Small eye hook

Hot glue gun and sticks

Scissors

Optional

Acrylic craft paint (I needed this because my letter wasn't initially the color I wanted it to be)

Pins (If you would rather pin all the loops instead of hot gluing them to the wreath form)

(I highly suggest checking at the dollar store and Wal-Mart first before going to a craft store. I have found the same exact items for wayyy cheaper at these places and then want to kick myself)

I have to apologize ahead of time because I didn't take pictures of this as I went. So I will try to be as descriptive as possible in the steps!

Step 1: If you are going to paint your monogram letter, it would be best to do this first. I just laid out a piece of newspaper, grabbed a paintbrush, some white acrylic craft paint and went to town. I ended up having to do about 3 coats to fully cover the black but it wasn't that big of a deal. It dries quickly. I didn't even worry about the back of the letter, but you can paint that as well if you would like.

Step 2: Grab your wreath form and one of your 1.5 inch ribbon spools. Hot glue one end of your ribbon to the wreath, doesn't matter where, and start wrapping the ribbon around the wreath form, hot gluing it in place as you go.

What isn't shown in the finished picture is that I actually used 2 different ribbons for wrapping the wreath. I started with some very cheap red ribbon that I already had on hand. Problem was, in the end I didn't have enough of it to wrap the entire wreath with. I had a dilemma on my hands. I surely wasn't going to buy MORE, so I decided to finish wrapping the wreath with some red and white striped ribbon thinking “Who cares? No one’s going to see it.”

In the end I loved the look and decided to keep that section visible as shown in the picture. I love when a DIY fail ultimately turns into a major win!

Step 3: Once the wreath is fully wrapped and glued in place, the cutting begins! I've already warned that I’m not the most patient person so there was no way I was going to cut 7 spools of ribbon in one sitting. Ick. In the end I cut about 10 strips of each spool at a time. How long you cut the strips is a matter of preference. I cut mine at 1.5 - 2 inches long and I thought that made the perfect little loops.

Step 4: Take each strip and fold it into a circle with the ends overlapping. If you are going to use pins, you can just push the pin through the overlapped ribbon and then push the pin directly into the wreath. If you are going to use hot glue, then you will want to place a dab of glue at the end of a strip of ribbon then form it into a circle and press the ends together to bond. From there you can put a dab of hot glue on the wreath and then press your ribbon loop to it.

I tried a couple of different methods, but this worked best for me and created perfect loops once attached to the wreath

Step 5: Start by lining the outer and inner rims of the wreath with your ribbon loops. This trick made this project a little easier. As you place them around the rim, make sure that the open side of the loops are facing towards you so that you can see through them when looking at the wreath from the front. Also, if you are going to leave a portion ribbon free like I did mine, make sure to not place any ribbon on the top quarter of the wreath.

Step 6: From there you will just need to fill in all of the space between the 2 rims with your ribbon loops. I did this by placing ribbon in random spots, starting with my thickest ribbon first. Once it was mainly filled in, I went in with my thinner ribbon and filled in the remaining small gaps.

Step 7: To hang your wreath, you will want to cut a long piece of the ribbon of your choice. I didn't get the measurement of mine but it just needs to be long enough for you to tie the ends in a bow. Pull one end through the wreath hole (at the top of the wreath) and line the ends of the ribbon up so that its even. You can then add a dab of hot glue to the wreath and attach the ribbon so that it doesn't slide around. (If that sounds confusing, please take a look at the picture at the end of this post to get a little better idea of what I'm talking about)

Step 8: To attach your monogram letter, screw a small eye hook into the top of the letter. Then take a small piece of jute or twine and thread it through the eye hook, knotting it at the end. Hot glue the knot to the top inner rim of the wreath.

Step 9: I added a bow to mine to finish it off. The tutorial I used to do this is here. Once I finished the bow I just hot glued it to the wreath.

And then you're done!