Weddingbee Blog

Did you miss the last post about costing out the ribbon wands? It’s here!

While waiting for my ivory and teal ribbon to arrive, I spent a few evenings in front of the TV cutting the green ribbon into 18″ lengths. Once the rest of the ribbon arrived, I cut the teal into 18″ lengths. I decided to stamp a whole long length of the ivory ribbon before cutting it:

After stamping, I cut the ivory ribbon into 2′ lengths, cut a notch in the end (making sure that the text was going the right way!) and singed the notch over a candle so it wouldn’t fray.

I like to work this way, by getting all the bits done in chunks. Cut all the ribbon, singe all the ends, glue everything together. I find it goes much faster that way, rather than cutting lengths of 3 different ribbons, gluing those down, then cutting 5 more lengths of ribbon…

That said, I always make one (of whatever I’m doing!) fully, to understand exactly how it is going to go together, and what the best order is for all my different steps.

Now it’s time to make some wands! I used my trusty glue gun to stick everything together. My glue gun is low temperature, making it much less easy to burn yourself. But note that ‘low temp’ still doesn’t mean good to touch!

Step 1: Attach the dowel to the straight end of the ribbon. Because I’d paid attention to the direction of the text on the ribbon when cutting the notches on the ends, I knew that if I glued the flat end without checking, all would be well.

Step 2: I attached 3 ribbons at once! Make sure to spread the glue far down enough so you catch the end of the teal ribbon in the glue, as well as the two green ones. I also made sure to use the nozzle of the glue gun to spread the glue very thin. Glue gun glue can be very bulky, and I didn’t want too much extra bulk to roll up later.

Step 3: Attach teal ribbon the second. Note that when using organza ribbon, if you press down on it to anchor it to the glue, glue will come through the open weave and stick to your finger! This isn’t a problem with satin or other more solid ribbons. This is why I have the low-temp gun! I also press down with the flat of my fingernail, instead of my fingertip. The combination of low-temp gun, and no nerves in the fingernail works well for me, but is not recommended.

Step 4: Put a line of glue all the way across the ivory ribbon, on the outside edge of the last teal one, then roll it up! Give it a good press once you’ve reached the glue. Take this time to pull off the spiderwebby glue strands! You can see some in the picture above.

Step 5: Give it a wave! Then repeat steps 1-4 64 more times.

Something I learned:

When I was cutting the teal ribbon, I singed both ends with a candle to stop it fraying. I only actually needed to do one end, the end that is out and waving around. The other end is encased in glue and ivory ribbon! I actually ended cutting those little singed bits off, because the organza doesn’t melt as nicely as the satin does, so the rolls would have been a little lumpy if I hadn’t trimmed the end off. Live and learn!