My mother hates to craft. In fact, she dislikes it so much, she barely glances at this Web site. It’s okay, I really don’t mind. One of my aunts, on the other hand, loves to create things just as much as I do. Recently, she took my niece to the bowling alley one Saturday and came home with a new craft to do. Yes, you read that right, she learned a new craft at the bowling alley. Anyway, I thought the ornament she made was so cute, I asked her to come over and show me how she did it. Needless to say, we didn’t invite my mother to join us. We can only handle the rejection so many times!

First, you will need to gather all of your supplies. Please check the Toolbox on this page for a complete list. I will mention them again as we go along. Also, let it be noted that the ribbon measurements I provide do not have to be exact. Once you make one, you will see what I mean. Now, let’s get started!

The first thing you need to do is cut your ribbon to size.  I was using 2.5″ wide ribbon so I just cut it straight down the middle.  You will need about 5 feet of wide ribbon, cut in half, to give you enough to make approximately 50 pieces that are 2″ by 1.25″.  It doesn’t have to be exact, but make sure your ribbon pieces are about 2″ long and between 1″ and 1.5″ wide.  These ribbon pieces will make up the bulk of your finished ornament, so pick ribbon you really like!

Now, it is time to start pinning!  First, you need to cover the tip of the ornament with two crossed over pieces of ribbon.  Just center one piece and pin the four edges down and then lay another piece on perpendicular to the first and pin those four edges down.  This will conceal the tip of your Styrofoam egg to act as our starting point.

What you will want to do now is take one of the cut ribbon pieces and fold it into a triangle tipped point by bringing the two top corners together.  If your ribbon has a front and a back, make sure you fold it so that the front of the ribbon is on the finished side where you don’t see the fold.  Eventually, you will do this to all of the pieces but you have to do it one at a time since they will come unfolded if you don’t hold them. 

Take this piece and place it on top of the two strips you placed across the tip.  You will want four pieces encircling the top so that the tips of your ribbon triangles meet in the middle if you press them all together.  Take two pins and insert them along the sides to hold the ribbon in place and keep it folded into the triangle shape.  Don’t worry, once you start overlapping all of these triangle shapes, you will not see a single pin.

Continue folding your triangles and pin them in alternating rows, like roof shingles, until you cover almost the entire egg.  You will have about 2 inches of exposed Styrofoam at the top of your egg when you can stop pinning your triangles.

Pull out your coordinating ribbon and cut four pieces that are approximately 4.5″ long. Pin one end of each ribbon to the middle of your egg so that the ribbons dangle down on four sides. Don’t worry, we will cover the rest of the Styrofoam and exposed pins with the next layer of ribbon. Now, you will need your two 11″ pieces of ribbon. I used the same ribbon that I used for the triangle pieces but you can use yet another coordinating ribbon. Just make sure it has some wire or heft to it to hold a bit of shape. Form a loop with one of the pieces and center it over your dangling ribbon strips. Flatten the loop and insert a pin to hold it in place. Do the same thing with the other 11″ strip and pin it perpendicular to the first. The Styrofoam should now be completely hidden!

If you look at the top of your pine cone now, you have a bunch of empty space in the middle of the ribbon. You can fill this any way you like but I chose to make little ribbon loops out of the solid blue I used for the dangling pieces and yet another coordinating ribbon color. Feel free to use sprigs of greenery or anything else that coordinates with your base ribbon. Loop and pin ribbon pieces until the middle has a full look.  The final piece you need is one large loop to hang the pine cone from your tree.

Here are some of the ones we made that day. You can see how your choice of ribbon will make each of these totally unique! I love having them on the tree but they would also be cute hanging from the door knobs throughout your home!