A Prized Heifer

While perusing Michael's yesterday with my mom, we came across a display of these old fashion ribbons.  They had a variety, but I was naturally drawn to the teacher one.  I snapped a quick picture so that I could reference it later, because I knew I wanted to duplicate them.  My mom had also mentioned while we were there that she wanted a Martha Stewart tool that a friend of hers had.  It is a large scoring tool that even has instructions for making your own envelopes.  Pretty cool.  She bought one and I decided to test it out today.
 

I began by pulling out a few sheets of coordinating paper.  One thing to know is that with this tool you have to be careful with lighter paper.  I started pushing as hard as I did with the card stock and ripped my first piece.  I cut my back accordion to 2" wide by 12" long.  You will need two of them.  Then using the scoring tool I scored my paper every half an inch.  If you do not own a tool like this, just accordion fold your papers.

You will end up with something like this. 

Next you want to attach the two strips together so that you can turn them into a circle.  I tried two different approaches to this and found that the second way looked a lot cleaner.  Start by folding one side on your strip under, like pictured above.  You will then add some sort of adhesive or glue dots to that side.  You will then place it on top of the other sheet so that the folds line up and the accordian-ness still works.  Once you have attached both sides you should have a circle.

The next part is a little tricky.  You have to manipulate the paper until it lies down into a circle.  I simply pinched the folds together until I could get it to move.  If you are having a lot of trouble with this Google a video to help.  Then you need to glue a piece of scrap to the back so that it stays put.  It doesn’t have to be pretty because it will be covered.

I added a piece of paper between my two accordion pieces for a little more depth.  I don’t have a bunch of circle punches so I just found something around the house to trace.  This is probably common knowledge but please trace the circle on the back of the paper so that no lines ever show up on the front side.  Glue your circle on top of your accordion.

The next accordion was made from two strips measuring 1 ½” wide by 12” long.  I followed the same directions as above to make this accordion.

Glue in place.

Then your final circle is traced, cut, and then glued on top.  This is also where you could add a saying or some embellishments to the ribbon.  Now rummage through all that ribbon that I know you (and me) are hoarding.  Grab several different textures and styles to give your piece variety.

Attach the ribbon to the back using hot glue.  I lined my ribbon up before gluing to make sure they were exactly how I wanted them.  Don’t worry about the length, you can always snip them after.  After attaching the ribbon I cut another circle out of paper to put on the back.  I wanted it to look clean.

The finished product!  I haven’t added anything to the black one yet, but the possibilities are endless.  You could make them ribbons like they were in the store.  You could attach them to a wooden skewer and they can be wands.  You could put them on top of a present instead of the typical bow.  So many fun things to use them for.  Enjoy!