Start with the bow. Use a mixture of burlap and black and white ribbons.
Start with a 16-inch tail and a 6-inch loop. You want that loop to land on that 6-inch mark. You’re going to do 3 loops on each side with the burlap. Get that cut off.
You’ll do 2 loops on each side with the black and white ribbon. This will have a shorter tail. Because it’s a little bit shorter, you’re going ½-inch shorter on every loop. This ribbon has a nice texture and nice wire in it, so it’ll really hold its shape. It’s super simple to work with.
You’ll cover this back up with the pop of the burlap to kind of mute the stark bright black and white.
Use a zip tie. Zip ties sometimes hold your bows better into the grapevine wreaths. If you struggle using zip ties, y’all, just use pipe cleaners.
Now you want to get it somewhat secure, so that you can slide the next ribbon back there.
Before you tighten this off, make sure your bow looks somewhat how you want it. It’s harder to move these loops around once your have it all tightened up.
Set the bow aside for now. We’re going to add our bow on last.
Starting with our basic leaves, you’re going to build out to the left and right sides of the wreath. Leave a gap in the center for the bow where it will hang down.
Next, you’ll go with the cotton stem right on top of the basic leaves. If you see it falling forward a bit, you may take a pipe cleaner or a zip tie and attach it to the grapevine wreath. Just see how it looks when you get closer towards the finished product. Sometimes, the other stems will help hold it in place.
You just layer up the basic leaves and cotton stems. Get a nice amount of glue on there. The idea is to keep layering these over and over again, so that they just build right on top of each other.
Once that glue dries, let it sit there and mingle in the pieces.
So you saw, as I built, I made this, the hole, in the middle got smaller and smaller. That way, when you go to add the bow, you don't have any issues.
Let's get this bow in here. The only issue I may run into is getting it attached. So try not to go around the outside of the grapevine, always try to weave it inside through the middle.
Pull this tight, and you'll get it flopped over a little bit. So you see how this piece [basic leaves] back here is sticking out all willy nilly? Try to bend these in just a little bit. They're all wired, so they should do just about anything you want them to.
Find a little baby zip tie, come down below the area where it's noticeable, and just zip tie this little guy right onto the grapevine. Get that where you want it.
Almost done, y’all. After this, we've just got to clean the bows up a little bit. All right. So we'll start on those and just curl these tails.