Every year I attempt some sort of DIY wreath at my house. Last year was the yarn wreath (failure). This year I set out to totally redeem myself. I wanted something that was quick and easy but definitely cute. (Don’t we all?). My kids have come down with some sort of respiratory virus so I haven’t left the house much the last five days. Because of that I wanted a craft that could be interrupted during the process for any needs my boys had for me.
What I love about this wreath craft is how versatile it is. I actually ended up with a totally different style than the one you see above at first. However, after playing around with it, I ended up with the ribbon knots hitting the outer edge. It’ll make much more sense as you read along.
And yes, I took so many pictures of this wreath as I made it. This isn’t even 25% of them. For some reason I just loved the green and thought you should too. Ha!
To make this wreath you will need ribbon and a styrofoam wreath. I bought the wreath at the Dollar Tree. The ribbon I found at Meijer, but you could grab it anywhere. You’ll need about 45 feet of ribbon. This styrofoam wreath was 9.5 inches in diameter. You may need less or more ribbon depending on the size of the wreath and the size of the ribbon.
I chose to go with all green for two reasons. One, the Meijer store I was at had wide varieties of green. I had thought about red, but there was not the variety of colors and patterns. I have two sick kids right now so my only trip out in the last 5 days was to Meijer and the Dollar Tree, I had to work with it. Two, the styrofoam is green. Call me lazy, but I didn’t want to paint it in case some of the wreath wanted to show through. If you’re doing this with a green wreath like I am, you’ll want to paint the front of the Styrofoam to match one of the colors of the ribbon.
You’ll next want to cut the ribbon into strips. Mine were about 10 – 12 inches in length. In order to know the length you’ll need, you’ll want to tie one knot around the wreath and then cut all remaining ribbon that length.
The best way to start is to choose one color that you want to have as the base. You’ll want to tie it in knots (double tie) around the entire circumference. I tried to keep it as even as possible to make sure that my darkest color was even all the way around.
And you keep going around evenly with different colors. The last color I used was from a more narrow ribbon to fill in the open spots.
Here’s what it looks like all complete! The middle was a bit crazy so I trimmed up the ribbon all the way around. You won’t have the circular middle if you don’t trim, trim, trim.
I really love how all the knots look together. I lined them up this way but you could stagger the knots as well. I just really like them this way.
The final step was to hang it. To create the loop at the top, I just used leftover ribbon and stapled it together. Easy! Because I was using the door hanger I could easily wrap it around and staple it. It will be easy to remove the staples at the end of the season to store the wreath. You can see the staples in the above picture, but I actually rotated the loop more so that it will be completely hidden.
So here’s what it looked like! Well, at first. I love how crazy it looks and the colors. To make a wreath that looks like this above you will need the 45 feet of ribbon. However, after having it look like this for a day, I decided to make things a bit different because I love, love, love the way the back looks with the ribbon.
So now it looks like this! If you want to do it this way, you may not need 45 feet. My ribbon really overlaps so I probably only needed 2/3 of the ribbon I used. But I still love it!
Which one is your favorite?
Okay, so now I have to tell you a funny story. As I’m working on this my husband comes in and tells me that it looks great. And then his next line is, “Is that for St. Patrick’s Day?”. Ha! I guess it could be. But, um no. At least not right now in the beginning of December. 🙂
Get some ribbon together and make this fun wreath!
This is so cute and simple! I may have to make a few for the different seasons! Funny that your husband thought it was for St. Patricks day. Haha. At least you can save it and use it for that as well. 😉
I like the front view best. Love the colors!