Wedding Wednesday: DIY Flower Girl Ribbon Wands

Another Wedding Wednesday and another DIY project – but guess what? This one DIDN’T suck! Whee! It was actually super easy to do (though I made it slightly more involved than you need to) and can easily be done with a few supplies and while watching TV (like I did!). Late last night, I tackled DIYing the wand streamers for my flower girls!

Remember, we’re not having them do the more traditional rose petal toss. For one, I think that’s really random and weird. And two, one of our flower girls has mid- to severe-spectrum autism and making her throw “trash” on the ground would have been too much for her (since she’s been taught not to throw stuff on the ground her whole life, this small change could result in a meltdown). But she does know how wave a wand or pompoms (after all, we are in Texas) so I made the executive decision to have the ladies wave streamers. Here’s how I DIYed them:

Supplies:

• Wooden Dowel
• Ribbon
• Hot Glue

Directions:

Step One: Cut dowel to desired length (I bought mine at Home Depot and cut it at one of their wood cutting stations). Trim ribbon to desired length (I unspooled mine and cut it in half). Layer both ribbons on top of each other in an X and add a bit of hot glue to secure.

Step Two: Glue ribbon X onto the top of the dowel. Ribbon should hang in four pieces on four different sides of the dowel.

Step Three: Grab two lengths of the ribbon (I chose light pink and hot pink) and begin wrapping both around the dowel. Secure every few centimeters with hot glue. Continue until you reach the end.

Step Four: At the end – if you have extra, wrap and secure (with glue) one end over the bottom of the dowel. Now do the same with the other piece of ribbon (so they overlap). This is the beginning of the streamers of your ribbon wand.

Step Five: Follow all of Steps Three and Four but with you remaining two pieces of ribbon. This will go faster because you’ll be able to see where the ribbon and glue goes (in the empty spots).

Step Six: Add ribbon streamers to the end of the dowel with hot glue. Just keep layering them on (hang all of them in one direction or do them hanging all over, like I did) and securing with your glue.

DONE! These ribbon wands were a pretty easy DIY and one that I did in under and hour while watching TV (and helping install a bathroom sink and toilet). To make it easier, you could skip the ribbon wrap around the dowel and just glue streamers from the end. I just liked the look of the wrap!

So, Tulle Nation – any of you doing a non-traditional flower girl (or ring bearer) activity? Any of it DIYed? How’d that go? Tell mama all about it in the comments, y’all.