Ribbon Wand

Ribbon Wands are the best!  And you can make your own all easy peasy.

You'll probably have to run to Walmart for some of the stuff, but this is an easy, no sew project.

You need:

Ribbon 

12 inch wooden dowels (I think they are 1/2 inch)

Swivel/spinner things for fishing

Eye hooks (I got mine out of a little photo hanging kit)

Needle Nose Pliers

Optional: washi tape (or markers or paint) to decorate the dowel/handle

Not pictured:  hot glue gun and lighter

I bought a 36 inch dowel and cut it into thirds.  I sanded the ends to make sure there wasn't any sliver potential.

For starters, screw the eye hook into the end of your dowel.  You can use the needle nose pliers to get it started.

And then you should be able to screw it all the way in by just using your hand.

Next, use the needle nose pliers to open up the eye of the eye hook.

Put the circle end of spinner thing into the eye hook and close with the needle nose pliers.

The ribbon part is up next.

Cut your ribbon however long you want it.  I cut ours 6 feet long.  Use a lighter to heat seal the ends.

Fold over the end of the ribbon and hot glue to leave a loop.

Once the hot glue is dried (which takes all of 30 seconds) clip the loop onto the spinner thing.

And you're done!  Unless you want to decorate the handle.  We used washi tape, but you can do whatever you want.  Or you can do nothing.  This is a free country, after all ;)

I let the girls choose what tape they wanted to use and I put it on.  

There was a lot less crying that way...from all of us!

See how much fun it is to twirl around with a ribbon wand!

So, about my insistence that you don't use sequins on a string.  I thought it would be pretty to have sequins twirling around, which I was right about.  It was lovely.

What I didn't account for was that it would get tangled every 5 seconds.

It also really hurt if your sister's ribbon accidentally whacked you.

Both of those factors lead to crying.  

Worst decision I've made since I put a remote control car in my hair and thought it would get untangled if I put it in reverse.

I do have to sometimes take these away from the girls when they "poof" each other like Abby from Abby's Flying Fairy School on Sesame Street.  They aren't actually touching each other when they are poofing, but sometimes a girl just doesn't want to get poofed and her sister isn't respectful of that.

Can you even believe the silliness of some of the things we have to address as parents?  I never thought I'd have to say, "Don't poof your sister!"

Anyway, poofing aside, these are an easy and fun way to make any day special.  I think they would make a fun party favor for a little girl's birthday party!

Have a happy day!

I learned how to make ribbon wands from this tutorial.

Linking up with Abbie on Five Days Five Ways!