Easy DIY ~A Ribbon Tree

I love ribbon and have numerous rolls from everyday use to seasonal themes. However, as you know, storing lots of ribbon gobbles up space. For my everyday go-to ribbon, I keep this space saving ribbon tree in my craft/mud room for easy accessibility.

Other Ribbon Storage areas

Ribbon snippets are collected by color and stored in a drawer. And when we were designing the craft/mud room, there is a special pull out space for hanging ribbon near the gift wrapping area. Christmas/holiday ribbon is in a large tub in the Christmas room in the basement. To see more of my mudroom, click here.

This is a very easy DIY and quite honestly, I wasn’t going to share it with you. Mostly because I thought you may not be interested. However, I did post this simple project to HomeTalk and as of this morning, it has 22,000 views. So maybe it is a valuable DIY after all.

Making the Ribbon Tree

All you will need for this project is a pot or container, a wooden dowel and Plaster of Paris (or other cement type medium), and duct tape if you have a hole at the bottom of your pot. Do not use spray gap filler foam. I tried that first and it was a complete disaster.

Cover your hole with duct tape.

Measure the height of your dowel. Some things to consider: 1) how many spools of ribbon do I want to stack? 2) Do not make the dowel so high that the weight of the ribbons will topple your container. My dowel height is 28 inches.

Mark and cut your dowel. A knife will cut through it easily.

Adding the Plaster

Mix your Plaster of Paris according to the manufacturer’s directions. You can find Plaster of Paris at Walmart, Michaels, or any hardware store. I did this in stages as I didn’t have a large enough container to mix it all at once.

Since I didn’t want to hold the dowel while the Plaster of Paris is drying, I made a cardboard circular cut out that will sit in the bottom of the pot. This is done by tracing the outside of the pot base onto cardboard.

Place the dowel and cardboard circle in the bottom of the pot, and fill with the Plaster of Paris mixture.

Pour the mixture to approximately an inch from the top or you can fill all the way. It really doesn’t matter.

In order to keep the dowel in the center of the pot, I also made two cardboard rectangles, each with a center hole. Slide both pieces of cardboard over the top of the dowel. Now the dowel will remain in place until the mixture hardens. Plaster of Paris sets rather quickly (30-45 minutes) and fully cures within 48-72 hours.

Here is how the pot and plaster looks after all is dry. Notice how sloppy I am with spills on my pot. These easily rub off with water.

This step is optional but I fill the top inch with sphagnum moss. After all it is a flower pot. You can leave it be or fill it with colorful glass stones, regular stones, seashells, whatever you’d like. It will be covered most of the time by the spools of ribbon so this step is optional.

Add Your Ribbon

Now you can stack your ribbon on the dowel.

What I love about this ribbon tree is that it takes up very little counter space. Unlike most ribbon storage this one is vertical and fits well into a corner in my craft/mud room. The loose ends of the ribbon are secured with push pins.

My “daily” ribbon is what I use on our egg cartons or gifts of homemade bread. Everything looks so much better with a bit of ribbon, doesn’t it? Having ribbon right there within reach saves me time searching through drawers or bins looking for it.

Well, that’s my DIY tip for the day! I’m not a very crafty person so I hope you find this one valuable.

It is Tuesday and I am dreaming about the water. Every year for as long as I can remember, we go to the ocean for a few weeks in July. Pacific….Atlantic…sometimes both. The thought of sitting under an umbrella listening to crashing waves while reading a brain-candy book…..ahhh.

Enjoy your Tuesday wherever you are.

This post shared with Tuesday Turn About#58 Fun in July

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