Thursday, June 1, 2017

Graduation Ribbon Leis!

The graduation of my oldest daughter is creeping up very quickly, so I've been prepping like crazy for all the celebrations. My last post was that cute little door wreath, now here's something for the graduate herself...and a few extra for her friends! I found a tutorial for how to make ribbon leis on YouTube (I should have written down the link to share!), and once you get the hang of it it goes quite quickly.  And, I gotta say, it's kind of relaxing like doing knitting or crochet.  So, I won't go into the details of how to make them since it's all over the web but I will share my results and materials.

For the leis I made for my daughter's friends, I used floral ribbon I bought at the local flower market. Most of them I made with the four-strand technique, but I tried two with just two colors as well.  The good thing about the floral ribbon is it's inexpensive (100 yards for $6-ish)...the bad thing, it doesn't hang like regular ribbon without something weighing it down.  That's why I made the center medallions.  Those were just 3-1/2" discs of poster board that I glued 3" ribbon loops (that's the cut size before looping).  For these, you'll want to start by placing the loops at quarter points around the circle (as if you cut the circle in fourths), then fill the spaces between in the desired pattern.  If you look closely at the pictures below this will make sense! To finish off the medallions I cut 2" circles, and 1.75" circles with Class of 2017, on my Cricut Explore, but of course you could do that by hand.  

For my daughter's lei, I wanted it to be extra special.  So, I bought regular narrow ribbon at JoAnn's in her school's three colors (but you'll need 4 spools for each lei, I used 2 of gold for each one).  I made three separate leis, then loosely braided them together and sewed the ends with invisible thread.  Her medallions were made on some plastic tube ends I had, and also finished with poster board and glittered Liberty Bells (she went to Liberty H.S.). I also found some tassels at my local Dollar Tree in their graduation decorations, so I tied those on as well.  I love how hers turned out!

Happy weaving!


My masterpiece...three four-strand ribbon leis with medallions and tassels!

A collection of four strand ribbon leis with "Class of 2017" medallions.

Two color ribbon lei in navy and white.

Two color ribbon lei in light blue and white, with a touch of glitter!