Patriotic Ribbon Wand

Materials Needed (I bought all these materials at Michaels):
4 12" wooden dowels - 1/2" in diameter
1 pkg. of eye screws (small enough to screw in one end of dowel but not large enough to crack it)
1 pkg. of split rings (optional)
8 spools of ribbons (any type and color) cut into 1 1/2 yds. each (8 strings per wand)
1 spool star garland - cut four into about 7"
1 pkg. Lady Bug thumb tacks

Doesn't take much to put a ribbon wand together.

Take one end of a wooden dowel.  Screw in the eye screw and attach a split ring. Normally an eye screw would suffice but since these were the only ones I found at Michaels, I had to think of how else I could attach the ribbon and the split ring came to mind.  (This small eye screw is too small to attach 8 or so ribbons to it).

Take one end of a ribbon and thread it through the split ring.

Then double knot it.

Continue to do the same with the rest of the ribbons.  Lastly, attach one of the star garlands to the eye screw (not the split ring other wise the ribbons won't flow as easy) and then wind the garland around the dowel.

Attach a Lady Bug thumb tack to the other end - because Lady Bugs are part of Summer :)

This post will continue in a couple of days.  I made these ribbon wands for a special little girl who I'm going to go see in a far away land.  I will take pictures of her playing with them and post them below.  I can't wait to see her face and eyes light up when she sees what I brought her.

Here she is folks, isn't she adorable?  She loved them :)