DIY Ribbon Wands

Hi! I am making them!
I am not painting them though I am covering them with ribbon!! They are such a pain to make!!!

I am painting mine silver - i used regular paint and a brush but it is probably easier with spray paint

it takes awile either way

WHY DIDN'T I THINK TO PAINT THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am having such a hard time with ribbon!!!

Oh no! Wrapping the ribbon is a pain? I was afraid of that - but more so because I have no patience. Maybe I should spray paint them - that's a great suggestion. I could never hand paint them - it would be a mess.

I am spray painting mine and here are the directions I am following:

RIBBON WAND DIRECTIONS

I've had a lot of people ask me how I made the ribbon wands, so I will do my best to explain it. It's sort of hard to do without visuals, but I will do my best!
I began by purchasing 12-inch wooden dowel rods at Michaels. They were about $1.15 for packages of 20-25. I bought silver spray paint (it's better to buy the more expensive kind, because I tried the cheaper kind and the silver rubbed off onto my hands when I held the dowel rods). I think the spray paint I bought was around .00 and it covered around 75 wands. To spray paint them, I laid out newspaper in my garage and did them all at the same time, making sure to turn them to make sure they were completely covered.
I bought the ribbon at Michael's, too. It was on sale for 50 cents per spool (each spool was 10 yards). It's not the sort of ribbon you use to wrap presents, so I supposed it would be considered cloth. I bought three different colors: White, purple, and lavender. For each wand, I only used two colors, but you could use more if you wanted to.
Alright, now for the assembly part (this is where it may get confusing!) I picked two colors and cut one piece from each, about 30 inches long. Once I had the two pieces of ribbon, I folded them in half so there is a loop at one end, and the other end looks like there are four ribbons. I held the loop against one end of the rod. Then I took the end of the ribbon and put it through the loop. Now the ribbon was looped into the rod. I got the knot to look nice, and then I secured it with a dab of hot glue. You can see a close-up picture of the knot, so hopefully it will make more sense.
I really didn't keep track very well of how much ribbon I went through. I suppose you could do the math to figure it out, considering each spool has 10 yards of ribbon and each piece is about 30 inches long.
I hope this helped explain the process to you. Feel free to email me if you need further details, but it's sort of hard to do in writing! The knot was the hardest part for me to figure out and it took awhile of messing around with it before I found something that worked. Other girls have done them differently. Good luck!

Wow! Great directions!!! I am doing them a little differently. I got the dowels from Home Depot (FH will cut them down to 16 inches each - so three wands per dowel) then I got those little white caps that go over the white metal shelve edges. The ribbon goes on over the top of the towel and the cap covers them and basically holds them in place. I got my ribbons from Michael's too - great deal!

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Posted by Ang&Rich

Wow! Great directions!!! I am doing them a little differently. I got the dowels from Home Depot (FH will cut them down to 16 inches each - so three wands per dowel) then I got those little white caps that go over the white metal shelve edges. The ribbon goes on over the top of the towel and the cap covers them and basically holds them in place. I got my ribbons from Michael's too - great deal!

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THAT'S IT!!! I am spray painting mine!!!!!!!!!!!
It is driving me nuts trying to wrap them with ribbon!!!!!!!! Spray painting it is!!!!!!!!

Ang-Tell me more about these caps!

I got the idea from another ribbon wand that I saw. In Home Depot in the storage area there are those metal shelves - they are white racks basically for closets and such. Well they make these caps for the edges of the shelves - so you don't hurt yourself when they are finally installed. I got a baggie of 96 for $3.66. You can put it right on the end of the dowel - with the ribbons - there is plenty of room and it's a snug fit (I was throwing them around). I brought the dowel with me to make sure it fit.

I just went to look but I don't see them there. The shelves they belong to are there but no clear picture of the pieces I am talking about.

I found them for $1 or $2 at:

http://custom-programs.com/ribbonwands.htm

Cheap and easier than making them yourself!