Happy Earth Day! I mulled over several ideas for today, but this idea came to me as I spent most of last week stuck at home due to Chicago flooding. I finally disassembled the ribbon wall photo booth backdrop from my wedding and found myself with a bunch of 70 inch pieces of ribbon, mostly grosgrain ribbon that’s all the same width. Rolling up all of the ribbon for storage, I couldn’t get over how pretty it all was (I even Instagrammed it). Particularly, the ribbon made me think of vintage jute trivets, but this finished project is definitely more elegant than kitschy.

vintage jute trivets via etsy

Supplies

lots (as in dozens of yards) of grosgrain ribbon, cut into 70-inch lengths

rubber bands

hot glue gun

straight pins

scissors

Directions

Bundle your pieces of ribbon into little rolls. To make the big circles you see above, hold three pieces of ribbon together and wind them up together like you’re putting away a tape measure. Secure with a single rubber band around the outside.

To make the smaller circles, do the same winding, but with two pieces of ribbon rather than one.

The hardest bundles to make of those I used for my trivet are the oblong ones. I held together three pieces of 70-inch ribbon and cut them in half, to 35 inches in length. Hold together one set of three, 35-inch ribbons. Fold down one end about 1 inch and pin to secure. Then, wind the rest of the ribbon all the way around and secure with two rubber bands in a plus sign, as shown.

When all of your ribbon bundles are wound and rubber banded, arrange them however you like. I spent a fair bit of time playing with how the arrangement looked before I was satisfied. The oblong bundles actually came about when I realized a couple of those would help my trivet come together.

Heat up your glue gun. To secure all circular bundles, I pretty much covered their bottoms with hot glue before trimming and gluing down the ends of each ribbon in the bundle.

The oblong pieces were again the most challenging to glue. I hot glued around the rubber band covering the bottom of each piece, let the glue dry, removed the rubber band, and filled in the gap in the glue on the bottom. Then I glued down the ribbon ends, flipped the oblong piece right-side up, and glued the center shut. Like this:

When the bundles are all set, start gluing your trivet together, tackling it in logical chunks. I recommend starting by gluing the middle together and then gluing obvious chunks together. This helps ensure all bundles stay properly lined up as you go.

Finally, glue all of your chunks together, let dry completely, and you’re good to go.