Have you been seeing vintage looking DIY award ribbons being used? I think it’s such a fun trend! It reminds me of old fashioned horse prize badges with the rosette shape, but modernized! Let’s make some! For mine, I’m using scrap fabric and ribbon. So it’s a great way to use what you have on hand to make some fun awards. These could be for a birthday, to hand out to friends, or as awards for a party!

DIY award ribbon

To begin, gather your supplies.

SUPPLIES

step 1- cut the base

Start by creating the base for the button part (the circle in the middle). To do this, use the 2″ circle punch to cut out a card stock circle. Repeat for each DIY award ribbon you want to make- I’m doing 16. Now we’re going to cut out more 2″ circles, this time they’ll be felt. You can use the circle punch. But if the felt is too thick, trace the card stock circle and cut it out with scissors.

Each rosette needs 1 card stock circle and 1 felt circle.

step 2- cover the base in fabric

Next, we start making that center button really cute- by covering it in fabric. To do that, place the 2″ circle on some fabric and loosely draw a circle that’s about 1″ bigger than it (so a 3″ circle). I used a water erasable pen for this step and it worked great.

Cut out a little wider around the circle you just drew.

I like to take my circle to my sewing machine to create gathering stitches. I change the stitch length to the longest possible setting (mine is 5) and stitch around the circle on the drawn line. Make sure to not backstitch and leave long threads where you stop and start. You can also use thread and needle for this step, but I personally find the sewing machine is the quickest and easiest way to gather the circle.

I’ve also tested hot gluing the fabric to the circles, but I found it slow, I burned myself, and it had more jagged edges than the sewing machine method.

Place the felt on the center of the fabric and then the card stock on top of that. Take the threads on the circle and pull them tight so the circle gathers around the circles. The card stock acts as the sturdy backing and the felt gives it some cushion so it has a soft, rounded edge.

step 3- Rosette ribbons

Every DIY award ribbon has a few layers of ribbon around the main button. Now, we’re going to add those on! For this I took a piece of ribbon and cut it 14-16″ long. Then I took it to the sewing machine and, once again, sewed on gathering stitches. Remember, for those turn the stitch length to 5, leave a long tail on each end, and don’t back stitch.

Then, take the string and pull it to create gathers throughout the ribbon.

Pull gently on the string and ribbon so the gathers are somewhat uniform.

Take the button from step 2 and on the back, apply hot glue all around the edge. Then, press the ruffled ribbon onto the hot glue. Tip- I like to start and end attaching the ribbon at the bottom of the button. If you’re at all short on ribbon, it’ll still look nice.

For my rosettes, I like to have two layers of ribbon. For the second one, I used gathered trim. This is much easier than gathering your own!

Just cut an 8″ piece of ruffled trim and hot glue it behind the first layer of ribbon.

To finish out the top section, I like to tie a skinny piece of ribbon into a little bow. Then hot glue it at the base of the button. If you have any mistakes so far, this bow can cover them up!

step 4- ribbon tails

Finally, all that’s left for the DIY award ribbons are the tail ribbons. For this, I like to use two sizes- a skinny and a thick piece of ribbon. For the skinny ribbon, fun trims like ric rac or daisy trim can be a great option!

Cut the skinny piece of trim to 9.5″ long.

Use some hot glue and glue on the fold so it’s in the shape of a V.

For the thick ribbon, cut it to 10.5″ long. At the base of the ribbon, use scissors to cut it so there’s a v shape in the tails. This adds some fanciness to it! Use some hot glue and glue on the fold so it’s in the shape of a V.

Glue the skinny piece of trim to the top of the thick trim. Then glue the set of tails to the back of the button rosette.

At this point you’re pretty much done! All you have to do is hot glue a pin to the back so it can be worn later. I’ll be using these circle stickers to write the award on when I use them. But for now, they’re so cute all finished up!

after

Here are the finished DIY award ribbons- aren’t they cute?!

I made 4 in each color way. If I didn’t have enough of one type of ribbon, I’d use what I did have. So there’s some fun variations!

I’m doing a group trip to Portugal and taking these for awards at the end of the trip. I genuinely cannot wait to hand these out!

price breakdown

This was a very frugal project for me because all I had to buy was the $4 pin backs for the rosettes. I had everything else on hand! It was exciting to use up some of my ribbon and trim collection to make these cutie buttons.

time spent

Each DIY award ribbon took me awhile to make. I’d say a set of four takes 45-60 minutes to make. So they’re a little time consuming. But very fun to see come together!

I love how these little award ribbons turned out, especially knowing I was able to use so many scraps and ribbons I already had on hand! They’re definitely a little time-consuming to make, but I think they’re such a fun way to make an ordinary birthday, party, or get-together feel extra special. I can’t wait to bring these to Portugal and hand them out at the end of our trip!

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