Pinbusted or Pintrusted: The Ribbon Wreath

In this installment of Pinbusted or Pintrusted, I will show you my adventures in making a ribbon wreath. I saw the pin right around the time when we GeekMoms were enjoying a summer gift exchange in 2012. I had drawn one of the editors, and I was totally thinking “something homemade” for her.

When I came across this pin by blogger Stacy at She’s {kinda} Crafty, I thought to myself, “Oh yeah, I could totally do this!”

Now, here’s the kicker: the pin takes you to a post that shows several shots of a well-done ribbon wreath, but they are not instructions for how to make the wreath. You need to click through to Stacy’s Halloween wreath, which then has the instructions linked at the Tatertots and Jello blog.

After that wild goose chase, it was smooth sailing for me. First, I collected the materials:

Wreath form
Thick/wide ribbon to surround the wreath form
Assorted colors of ribbon (This can be absolutely anything you want, but I recommend they be similar thickness so there’s a uniform “lay” to the ribbon.)
Hot glue gun with plenty of glue sticks

Follow the photo captions to see my journey through this craft.

First, wrap the thicker ribbon around the wreath form. Only one dollop of glue is all it takes to keep it together. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

Next, I had to cut the ribbon. While the wreath shown in the Tatertots and Jello blog shows varying lengths of ribbon...I chose to cut the pieces uniformly. Photo: Patricia Vollmer. — Next, I had to cut the ribbon. While the wreath shown in the *Tatertots and Jello* blog shows varying lengths of ribbon…I chose to cut the pieces uniformly. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

The next task is to glue the ribbon lengths into loops. This was a long task....and my poor fingers were pretty blistered after gluing about 200 loops of ribbon together. Photo: Patricia Vollmer. — The next task is to glue the ribbon lengths into loops. This was a long task….and my poor fingers were pretty blistered after gluing about 200 loops of ribbon together. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

Then I glued the loops to the wreath form. How to do this is up to you. Someone people will start at the 12 o' clock position and work his/her way around the wreath form. Photo: Patricia Vollmer. — Then I glued the loops to the wreath form. How to do this is up to you. Some people will start at the 12 o’ clock position and work their way around the wreath form. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

I decided to add some flair to the wreath by printing out some GeekMom logos to laminate.

This was more difficult than I thought. I wanted a decent quality printout, so I had to go to my local Walmart and print it at their DIY kiosk.

I got some great results from one of these machines. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

The finished product is below.

The one-and-only pin-feather in my hat that truly turned out great! Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

Pinbusted or Pintrusted?

I will say trusted even though my own results aren’t as vibrant-looking as the ones I saw on Pinterest. This isn’t a difficult craft to do, but it does take some time. I chose to work on it while sitting in front of Friends reruns over the course of several evenings last summer. My oldest son even helped me by breaking out our second hot glue gun and blistering up his fingers too.

After putting GeekMom Jenny’s wreath in the mail, I immediately set forth to make another ribbon wreath for my front door.