DIY Ribbon Wands with Washi Tape

Do you want to keep your children busy for hours? These washi tape ribbon wands are very easy to make, and your kids will love playing with them!

Hi everyone! It’s Sarah here again from The Simply Crafted Life, sharing another cute and fun washi tape craft that you can whip up in five minutes that will have your kids playing for hours.

A couple of years ago, my mother in law bought a ribbon wand for my daughter, and she played with it so much! The ribbons started to wear out and fall apart, and she just needed a new one.

However, if you buy the real ribbon wands (this one was from a school gym company catalog), they are so expensive. I knew I could create one myself for much less with a little creativity and washi tape!

DIY Ribbon Wands

To make your own washi tape ribbon wands, you will need:

• a dowel (6 for $1 at our dollar store!)
• washi tape
• ribbon
• eye pin
• packing tape (optional)

To start, pull off a piece of washi tape that is slightly longer than your dowel. This is where the wide washi tape really came in handy, because I only had to use one piece to wrap around my entire dowel.

Wrap it smoothly around the sides, and twist the ends. Then cut the excess tape, smoothly the remains over the ends (you can also add a dab of paint to the ends and simply cut the washi tape even with the dowel end).

Screw the eye pin into one end of the dowel, and start cutting your ribbon. I used six different colors of ribbon, but any combo would be nice.

I think I want to make a monochromatic one next, with different shades of one color! This ribbon is often on sale at Michaels for 3/$1, so you won’t break the bank, and you only use about 3′ of each color.

To secure the ribbon, I tied it in a knot, but if you don’t have a deep seated aversion to your sewing machine, you could flatten the ribbons and stitch across them too for a solid hold.

If you think your child will tear or pick at the washi tape, you can cover the dowel and washi tape in a layer of packing tape to protect it from tears or dirt. I did this with one wand and not the other and they are both holding up very well, about a month in!

I can’t tell you how long my daughter played with these, and when her big sister came home from school, she requested one too!

They spin and twirl with them, dance with them, let the wind blow them . . It is such a fun open ended and creative toy, which in my mind, is the best toys you could have.

As you can see below, she wore herself out and fell over from spinning – but she just stayed on the ground playing with her ribbon wands 🙂

If you decide to whip one up for yourself, I would love to see a picture! And in case you missed it, make sure to check out the washi tape bunting that I shared here last month – it’s another quick one! See you next month, when I’ll be back again with another excellent washi tape post!