Ribbon Rack {Tutorial}

Once again, we are debuting a new item from our custom craft room that Mr. Woodsy constructed last year! Today we will show you how to build your own ribbon rack! Originally, I wanted this measly ribbon rack and shelving unit at Michael's. I brought Mr. Woodsy to Michael's to see it, and as soon as he saw it he said he could build one that was bigger and better for a fraction of the cost. I took him up on his offer, and voila! He came up with an 8 row ribbon rack! Once again, Mr. Woodsy has put together a brief tutorial on how to make your own ribbon rack. Remember, there are a wide variety of ways to make your own ribbon rack, this is just the approach he used! If you have questions, please don't hesitate to email us! 

For the ribbon rack I made a simple rectangular box with glued and nailed butt joints. You can personalize your ribbon rack to whatever size you wish, but remember to watch the length. If it's too long you might need to add a center vertical support for the dowels. The length of my dowels were 13.5”, if it's to long the dowels will bow. 

The length of the box on the inside is 13” so a ¼’ of dowel gets inserted in to the slots. As for the slots, I clamped the two sides together got an average size of the spools of ribbon (4  ½”) and divided the by the height of my box.  That gave me the amount of slots the I needed to route out.

I used a 3/8” upspiral bit to cut out each of the slots to the center of each of the side boards. Then I cut a 3/8” down cut to hold each dowel in place once mounted. 

*Pictured to the left is the ribbon rack and the right is the stamp rack*
I added bead board to the back of the rack for support and a little extra detail. Since we wanted all the furniture built for the craft room white, we painted the ribbon rack. I used a basic white water-based paint followed by a coat of water-based semi-gloss polyacryclic finish. *I did 2 coats of both white and polyacrylic. You can roll the white paint on but in order to get a smooth finish you must brush the polyacrylic on. 

Getting ready to nail the shelf in place. What is not pictured is the support brackets I made. It's up to you by the way you want to hang it. It should be wide enough to hit two studs in the wall if you want to hang it free standing. I didn't use that instead I used a scrap piece of wood that I mounted to the bottom and top (1 x 1). They were glued and nailed to the top and bottom of the rack. I then anchored and placed 2 screws in to the top and bottom parts of the wall. 

A few "test" rolls of ribbon on the rack... little did Mr. Woodsy know I would fill up the whole rack in no time! 

Here is what the ribbon rack looks like almost filled up! 

An upclose look of what the ribbon rack looks like filled.