Beautiful Curled/Wound Ribbon Necklace

Materials:
Ribbons (any!), fabric glue, couple of beads

These were made after being inspired by a wonderful blog post by Dom Norris but I have made one or two adjustments of my own (mainly using fabric glue rather than double-sided tape). The beauty of these necklaces is that they can be made from any length, colour or width of ribbon which, when glued together, can create gorgeous different effects.

Firstly, decide on the arrangement of your ribbon beads, the number you require for your necklace and the diameter you would like them to be. Then, find some different diameter objects to wind the ribbon around (I used a screwdriver shaft, a pencil and a chopstick!) to create different sized holes in the middle of the beads.

Cut a decent length of ribbon (to give you an idea, I used around 2m for the largest of my ‘beads’ which is roughly 3.5cm in diameter but this also has a tiny hole in the middle – if you have a larger hole then less ribbon is required) and neaten the ends so that they don’t fray – this can be done really easily in the case of synthetic ribbon by quickly running the cut end through a flame which melts the fabric neatly and seals it at the same time.

Then place a line of glue along the cut end of ribbon and roll around the object you have chosen to make the hole. Once this is secure, run a thin line of glue down the middle along the length of the ribbon (I tend to do this a little at a time rather than the whole length as it can get very messy!) and firmly roll the ribbon round and round until the whole length is of ribbon is used up and slip off your pencil/chopstick and leave to dry. Repeat this step until you have made all the beads you need.

Place the beads in the arrangement you would like for your necklace and carefully glue them together where they touch each other only. One you have done this, leave to dry thoroughly before attaching the ribbon tie. I cut a couple of long lengths of very thin (4mm ribbon) and threaded through the top ribbon beads. I secured them with a knot and then threaded a couple of beads on to finish the whole thing off – lovely!