Spelling It Out!

There were some questions after yesterday's blog post about the name ornaments that the grandchildren made while they were visiting over Thanksgiving; I decided to show you through a series of photos here today how they were constructed, there were a few errors made along the way (mine) as I developed a prototype for this fun Christmas craft. First, you will need to gather the following supplies: 7/8" wide ribbon for the ornament base, 5/8" coordinating "accent" ribbon for the bow at the top, silver cord for the hanging loop (I found 2mm on a spool), jingle bells, heavyweight silver thread (and a needle), regular cellophane tape, Scrabble tiles (I found mine on Amazon.com, they are sold in packs of 100 letters) and a hot glue gun.

I measured the silver cord into 4 inch lengths and wrapped that mark with a piece of cellophane tape and cut through the tape to eliminate the cord fraying and coming undone. I made a ring of the cord, matching end-to-end and wrapped it together to hold it with another piece of cellophane tape.

The backing ribbons (7/8" width) I cut into 15 inch lengths to accommodate any size name and to give myself plenty of room for the layout. I folded down an inch at the top and slid the loop inside the fold, covering the tape, and hot glued it down on the back.

Then, I flipped the ribbon to the right side and placed a tied bow (made from 12" lengths of the accent color ribbons, 5/8" in width) in position on the top. Don't glue it down yet, simply placing it in position gives you a good visual of where to start placing your letters without crowding the pieces.

Scrabble tiles! Find whatever letters you will be needing for a name or a greeting and place them on the backing ribbon until they're just the way you want them.

Put a glob of hot glue on the back of each tile, carefully, and place it down on the ribbon into position. Don't put the glue on the ribbon (trust me!). When the letters are all firmly in place go ahead and glue down the bow on top.

Adding the jingle bell: my first attempts at this had me trying to attach the jingle bell with the silver cord used for the top loop. I failed at that, the cord was way too bulky. I found that by pulling a length of heavy duty silver thread through the center of the ribbon, and threading the bell on the needle at the same time I could then cut off the needle from the thread, right near the eye, and have long enough "tails" to tie a square knot firmly, anchoring the bell smack-dab in the center of the ribbon. I then tied a knot again, going around the back and then back to the front to gather the sides and after tying once more, tightly, I snipped off the excess thread length. 

Voila! Trim the ribbon off at the bottom, below the bell. I cut on angles toward the center to prevent the grosgrain ribbon from fraying.  These are quick and adorable personalized ornaments, I think I may use these as name tags for Christmas gifts. Have fun!

Life is Good!