We recently threw a party where we made great use of some ribbon we already had and a cake stand we made last year. The result was a super cute Ribbon Skirt that fit around the stand. This skirt is simple to make and VERY inexpensive. It completely transformed our cake stand, and was removable, so we can use our stand again without the skirt. Since we already had the materials to make it, it cost us nothing but a couple hours! However if you did need to buy everything to make this (assuming you already have your cake stand) it would cost you about $10, and most likely less if you bargain hunt.

So let’s get right down to it.

Here is a list of the materials that you will need to make your own “Ribbon Skirt”:

Double Sided Tape or Hot Glue (depending on how you want to attach your skirt to your stand)

Scotch Tape or Masking Tape (either will work well)

Scissors

Satin or Grosgrain Ribbon (⅝” to 1” widths work best, several different coordinating colors)

Cake Stand

Step One: Choose several colors of ribbon you think will work well together as well as your cake stand in need of a temporary makeover. You’ll want to make sure that whatever ribbon you use as your “base” (the part that goes all the way around the edge) is at least as wide as the edge of your cake stand so that it covers nicely.

 Step Two: Take your base ribbon and tape one end to the edge of your cake stand horizontally. Wrap it around the edge staying taught and finish where you started with a bit of overlap, then trim. You should have one long piece of ribbon which you will be using to attach all of your other ribbons to. Go ahead and set it aside for now and move on to the next step.

Step Three: Choose any of your other ribbon colors and tape one end to the edge of your cake stand vertically. Let the ribbon fall down and pull it slightly taught so that there is no slack. Trim the ribbon where it meets the surface of the table or counter where you are working. You should now have one piece of ribbon that is the exact height of your cake stand. (Alternately you can make your ribbon as long or short as you want, we chose to make our the entire height of our cake stand.) Remove the tape from the piece of ribbon.

Step Four: Place your ribbon down flat onto your work surface and use it to measure out the lengths of your other ribbon pieces in each color and cut them. You will need to estimate how many pieces of ribbon it will take to build your entire skirt. This will depend on how large or small your stand is so we won’t be able to tell you an exact amount. (We started with 10 of each of our 5 colors, for a total of 50 pieces, and ended up with just a few left over.)

Step Five: Place your “base” ribbon from Step Two face down on your work surface. Using your cut ribbon pieces, define a pattern for your skirt. Feel free to play around with combinations, or you could simply make it random if that is how you like to roll! Remember to keep your ribbons face down if the sides differ. Once you are satisfied with your look, go ahead and layout all of your ribbon pieces from one end of the “base” ribbon to the other, keeping your ribbons touching edge to edge so that there are no gaps in between them. Starting with one end of the “base” ribbon and using your scotch or masking tape, lay down a section of tape about 4-5” long across the tops of your ribbons so that they are attaching to the base ribbon. You will want to work in sections, a little at a time, overlapping your tape as you go, until you reach the end. Your tape should be concealed and not reach over any edges of the “base” ribbon. Once you have secured all the pieces with tape you are ready to flip your completed skirt over and admire your handiwork! 
(You may be wondering “why not use glue for this process?” Glue tends to bleed through a lot of ribbons and can ruin the look of the ribbon. It is also hard to control and super messy. Tape also helps to stiffen the ribbon and make it a little sturdier and easier to handle.)

Step Six: It is now time to secure your skirt to your cake stand. When we listed the materials we mentioned two ways to do this, Hot Glue or Double Sided Tape. It will be up to you to determine which you would prefer to use for this step. (We chose tape for our because we wanted to be able to remove the skirt easily without damaging our stand. Plus it is less messy and hot glue can be unpredictable and stringy.) If you chose to tape your skirt on, you will want to work in small sections again, applying the tape to the skirt on top of the tape already there, then sticking it to the edge of your stand. If you use hot glue, you will want to work in small sections again, applying the glue in thin line on top of the tape already there, then sticking it to the edge of your stand. You’ll want to be careful that you align the edge of your ribbon skirt to the top edge of your stand all the way around.

Step Seven: (Optional Step) We wanted to jazz up the bottom edges of our ribbon strands hanging on the skirt so we chose to do a simple V cut to each piece all the way around. We just really like the way it looks and tend to do this to all of our ribbon projects. This is an optional step, and you may prefer another technique or to just leave your ribbon with a straight cut. Totally up to you!

Congratulations!

You now have your very own Cake Stand Ribbon Skirt.

Now bask in your crafting glory and enjoy your new (old) cake stand all over again!