Ribbon Garland

Hello!  I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas break and enjoyed your time from work, whatever you were doing.  Do you have any New Year plans?  As most of our efforts go in to Christmas, we’re quite happy for a quiet December 31^st, but it doesn’t stop me decorating a little and adding even more glitter and sparkle to my home.

Last year, I made a gold tassel garland from crepe paper and this year I wanted something similar, but a little less time and paper consuming, so I went for one of my favourite colour combinations - mint green, pastel pink and silver – and two of my favourite materials - crepe paper and tissue paper – to create a simple ribbon garland.  These are perfect for backdrops, to hide away anything you don’t want seen or just as decoration and they can be as small or large scale as you need.
The first version of this I have is a little more large scale and therefore, shows the more simple version of putting it together.  Taking each colour of paper, I folded the length widthways and then made 4cm wide cuts across the length to create my ribbons [to the length you will need + around a 5cm hem].  
I then arranged each colour in the order I wanted them to hang:

Taking a length of thin gold thread and with a little glue, I attached the tops by folding them over the thread and sticking in place at the ends.  This way, the ribbon can move along the thread and be a little more flexible, if you change your mind about the colour ways or order:

Continue in any colour way or pattern you need, for the width you want to hang.....

....and then attach in place:

With all the folding and cutting, your ribbons will probably be a little creased, so I recommend 

placing on an ironing board, covering with a tea towel and on a low setting, ironing out the creases - unless you are perfectly happy with the look:

This will straighten out your ribbons and then you can cut the lengths to the same measurements, 
or to the length of the area you are hanging the garland:

Perfect as a backdrop, or for covering an area that you might like out of sight:

If the garland is not quite as 'full' as you would like, or like me, your cuts weren't as straight as you may like, you can take this hanging and roll the ribbons up again, cutting into each strip to create several cuts across it [around 5 ribbon strands]:

You can see the difference between the two sides - the left side has had each ribbon strand on the right rolled up and then cut into five [stop before where the strip is glued to the thread], creating thinner ribbons and a more full garland.  Steam the creases out again if needed to create straighter ribbons.

The second version of this ribbon garland is smaller, created with thinner strips, folded in half over the hanging thread to double the ribbons and then attached at the tops with a little glue for hanging:

I'll have another simple and quick decorating post tomorrow, so see you then x