Wonky, squished, jumbled up ribbon wreath tutorial

I know that some of you have asked for a tutorial for the ribbon wreath I made this past Tuesday for Scrapbook Steals!  I put one together for you, but as you are about to see, it is not an exact science by any means.  It's kind of a go-crazy with the glue gun project. (my favorite kind!)

It started when I knew I wanted to make a ribbon wreath, but wasn't quite sure how to go about it.  I saw this tutorial on Tater Tots and Jello, and although I *loved* the final outcome, whenever I read the words "sew" in a tutorial, my eyes glaze over and I instantly lose interest.  As a general rule, if it can't be done with hot glue, I don't do it.  So, I decided to take the basic principles of the tute, and make one of my own.  So this is my Lazy-girl-Wonky-Hot-Glued Ribbon Wreath Tutorial.

First, since I didn't want to drag all four of the kids to a craft store with me for a wreath form, I decided to use what I had handy.  I made a big donut shape in my Silhouette software, and cut it out of white cardstock.  Viola!  Wreath form!

Then, I gathered a huge pile of ribbon.  I grabbed a couple of feet of 1.5" ribbon, a couple of feet of 5/8" ribbon, and about 7-8 spools of the 3/8" ribbon from the American Crafts ribbon steal.  I cut the ribbons into 5-6" pieces, (like I said, not an exact science.) while I fired up my glue gun.  Starting with the widest ribbon first, I ran of bead of glue width-wise about an inch from the bottom of the wrong side of the ribbon.  Then I smushed the glued part to it's matching side, making a loop, like this:

Then, while the glue was still wet, I smushed it to the wreath form, with the little tails poking out, and the loop pointing up.  Then repeat, repeat, repeat until you can see no more of the white space on the wreath form.  Since I was working with the widest ribbon first, I spaced them all out evenly around the wreath form, using about 8 loops each of 1.5" and 5/8" ribbon.  Then I went to town filling in all of the gaps with the 3/8" Summertime ribbon.

It was fun.  And messy.  And I was picking dried glue off of my fingernail shellac for a long time.

When the wreath was full, I cut out a sentiment with my Cameo, and made a few lollies using some paper scraps and some buttons, then hot glued that all to the front of my wreath.  And there you have it!  My messy, lazy-girl ribbon wreath.

I hope you all have fun with your ribbons and glue guns, and if you make one of your own, I'd love to see it! (You can post it on the Scrapbook Steals facebook page, especially if you used the ribbons from the steal!)  Have a blessed Good Friday!

~Jen