Ribbon Heart

Who knew that you could turn curling ribbon into a beautiful heart!?! 

I learned how to make the individual “flowers” when I was little and only learned to connect two of them together into an oval-ish shape (which definitely is not as fascinating as this heart). It wasn’t until one of my college roommates showed me this awesome way of connecting the flowers together and I’ve been making it for family and friends ever since.

Supplies:

• 1 curling ribbon (from Michael’s)
• scissors
• ruler
• tweezers

There are a total of 14 “flowers”. For each flower, 4 pieces of ribbon will be needed.  Cut each piece 6 inches long, with the ends cut at an angle (easier to work with for inserting).  Fold each piece in half, with one side a 1/2 inch shorter than the other.  The shiny side of the ribbon should be on the outside.

1) Base of the flower: take the 4 pieces, with the short side up, and interlock them together: take the 1st ribbon and place it in between the fold of the 2nd ribbon, counterclockwise.  Continue the same with the 3rd and 4th ribbon, but instead, insert the ends of the 4th ribbon through the 1st ribbon loop.   

Fold the short sides of the ribbons down (non-shiny side showing), clockwise. Interlock by inserting the 4th fold into the 1st loop.

Flip it over to the shiny side and do the same, fold the shorter sides down. The ribbons on the top and bottom (or outside and inside) should be curling outward and in.

2) Flower petals: reorient the piece so that the shorter ribbons are  facing down (bottom) and the longer sides are facing up (top).

Take the 1st of the long ribbons and fold it outward, into a triangle.  Fold another triangle downward, leaving a little space between the two triangles (non-shiny side showing). Think of it as a bigger triangle now, and fold it in half into two triangles again (3rd picture below).  Repeat for the other 3 ribbons.

With these creases, we will now create the 3-D triangular petals.  Take the 1st ribbon and insert the end (non-shiny side) into the adjacent slit of the base. Remember the two triangles that you’ve already creased.  Pull the ribbon through and stop at where the right triangle crease meets. At this point, there should be a funnel-like loop of the two triangles facing down. Carefully pinch the two sides of the triangle and flip the two triangles upward.

Repeat for the other 3 ribbons and it should look like the below picture, with all 4 ribbons coming out from the center.

3) Flower center: take the 1st ribbon and insert through the adjacent slit (shiny side showing)and pull it through to  meet the shorter ribbons. (you may need to move the other ribbons to the side in order to insert).  Repeat for the 3 other ribbons. (tweezers may be needed to insert)

Finished flower!  Now make 13 more :)

The whole process in one picture:

Now we’ve got to put these pieces together to make the heart!

Cut down all sides of the ribbons to 1 inch.

4) Connecting the flowers: using tweezers, connect the pieces together.  There’s a total of 4 ribbons–2 will be on the bottom, and the other 2 will be on the top.   Say that we’re connecting a left and right flower, the left flower has 1 bottom and 1 top ribbon, and the right flower has the opposite 1 bottom and 1 top ribbon.  It is crucial to interlock them this way so that the flowers will stay well connected.

Insert and connect the ones on the bottom first; these bottom ribbons will be inserted into the base and they wont come out from another end.  The length of the ribbon in between the two flowers should be 1/2 inch. Insert the ones on the top and the ribbon should come out a little between the center and the petal. If you have trouble connecting a ribbon, you could cut it a little shorter.

Connect 2 more flowers, making it 4 in a row. (flower #1-#4)

Connect the flower #5 and #6 on both sides to flower #2 and #3 (left picture). Connect flower #7 to #1 and #5 and connect #8 to #4 and #5 (front side). Connect #9 to #1 and #6 and connect #10 to #4 and #6 (back side). (right picture)

Connect #11 to #1, #7, and #9.  Connect #12 to #4, #8, and #10.  Connect #13 to #7, #9, and #11.  Connect #14 to #8, #10, #12, and #13.

*OR, just follow the picture below. The numbers might be too confusing to keep track.

^__^