9 Ways to Use Ribbon to Make Your Home Festive for Christmas

Learn how to pull together your Christmas decorating with a variety of ways to use ribbon! Pick one style of ribbon and then use it in different ways throughout your home. You can even add more patterns!

Want to know a secret?

You can make your home look festive for Christmas with something really inexpensive!

And the best part?

It’s easy to use, and you can completely change how your home looks from one year to the next.

All you need is one thing:

Ribbon!

Okay, you might need a few rolls.

But still.

Go shopping in December and stock up on a new pattern for next year at a huge discount!

Or hit up warehouse stores like Costco, BJs, or Sam’s for huge rolls at a great price.

Always save your ribbon by rolling up flat pieces, or storing your bows so they don’t get crushed, and you can rotate through different color schemes from one year to the next without buying new ribbon each season.

I can’t wait to show you all the different ways I used a gorgeous plaid ribbon in my home this year!

Welcome to the 2022 Christmas Home Tour

Thank you to our sweet friend Marty from A Stroll Through Life for coordinating this home tour.

She’s organized 25 fantastic bloggers who will be opening up their homes to share holiday decorating ideas and inspiration over this week.

You can find all the links to everyone’s beautiful homes at the end of this post.

The bloggers who are sharing on the days before and after ours will publish their posts on the days listed, so be sure to check them all out!

Whether you’re visiting us from our friend Cindy of County Road 407, you’re a regular reader, or you’re new to Simply2Moms, Welcome!

Cindy is always so inspiring and we love her farmhouse style. What was your favorite part of her woodsy-looking bedroom?

If you’re new around here, we’re Anne and AnnMarie, two moms who are lucky enough to be besties and neighbors.

That’s AnnMarie in black, and Anne (that’s me!) wearing white.

We work together to share simple and budget-friendly ideas for decorating, recipes, DIY projects, and tips for life with older teens (and beyond!).

You can read more about us and our families over here.

But that’s enough about us!

Today I’m showing you around my home and sharing how I tied all my decorating together thanks to one style of ribbon.

You can check out how AnnMarie decorated her home this year over here.

Posts on Simply2Moms may contain affiliate links which means we may earn a small commission on purchases at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  You can read our full disclosure policy here.

Ways to Use Ribbon When You Decorate Your Front Entry for Christmas

The first thing people see when they come to visit is your front door.

Lots of people might see your front entry when they drive or walk past your home too.

Not to mention your delivery people.

So make your front door look amazing!

I love decorating the area around my front door each season, but especially at Christmas.

I made these planter boxes and filled them with a mix of fresh greenery from my yard plus faux boxwood topiaries.

There’s a lot of plaid Christmas ribbon here too!

It all started when I made this wreath.

You’ll never believe what’s under the yarn…

I made a big bow with some gorgeous plaid ribbon I got when we helped our friend decorate her store for Christmas.

If you’ve ever struggled with making fluffy bows, AnnMarie has a hack that makes it super easy!

Whenever I decorate, I like making visual triangles.

What’s a visual triangle?

It’s when you space out three things that are similar at different points like a triangle.

Once things are placed, try mentally drawing lines from one item to the next to create a triangle.

This design principle is super easy to do and really does work!

The bow on my wreath is one point of my triangle, then over to the side, I added bows to the greenery on the lanterns.

Then, down below I complete my triangle by tying some of the same ribbon around the handle of a candle lantern.

Remember: ribbon doesn’t always need to be made into a bow.

This simple square knot is so easy to tie, and the long tails make it look special.

How to Use Ribbon on a Front Porch

When we bought our home back in 2005, one of my favorite parts was the porch that runs across the whole front of the house.

It’s still one of my favorite features!

I tend to decorate it a lot each season.

If you choose a popular pattern of ribbon, like a traditional Christmas plaid, you can often find other accents in the same pattern.

These pillow covers have a very similar plaid as my ribbon, so I got a number of them to use throughout my house!

Pillow covers are really affordable, and they’re so much easier to store than whole pillows.

I also found ornaments with the same plaid and used them throughout my home to tie the look together.

This tiered plant stand is one of my favorite things to decorate!

I had small pieces of ribbon left over after decorating my home and tucked them into the greenery on this stand.

Tips for Hanging Wreaths with Ribbon

One of the easiest ways to use ribbon in your home is to hang wreaths from your doors.

These red berry wreaths add a fun pop of color for the holidays.

The easiest way to hang wreaths inside your home is by cutting a length of ribbon to hold the wreath, then attaching the ribbon to the top of the door with a staple gun.

This method uses a little more ribbon, but when the holidays are over, it’s super easy to remove the staples and the ribbon can be reused over and over again.

In this space, my visual triangle is made with the color red instead of the plaid pattern.

Notice how the red lantern on the floor creates a point in the triangle.

The Easiest Way to Attach Bows

Any time I make bows, I use chenille stems to either cinch them tight or to run through the loop in the back.

My favorite colors are either dark olive green or black.

Now you have an easy way to attach your bow almost anywhere!

The great thing about chenille stems is they’re super soft so they won’t damage wood or painted finishes.

Simply wrap the stem around some greenery like I did on my stairs, and voila!

You’ve added your holiday colors to match your color scheme that year.

If you look closely, you can see how I created visual triangles here with the plaid pattern.

The coordinating plaid pillow in the basket on the floor is the third point in several triangles with the bows on the garland.

There’s even a visual triangle with the ribbon attaching the wreath to the front door.

Ideas to Use Ribbon on Your Fireplace

My fireplace is definitely one of my favorite places to decorate each year!

I have a semi-open concept home, so the fireplace is a focal point from both the front door and the kitchen.

Our family Christmas tree that’s filled with ornaments I’ve collected for over 50 years is another focal point in the space.

It’s a fake tree and I love my tree collar that I customized to coordinate with my home’s style!

If you look closely, you’ll see I’ve used my plaid ribbon in a few spots around my fireplace.

The most obvious is on the greenery on the mirror.

Oh, wait!

Is that the same plaid?

You’re right.

The plaid ribbon on the mirror has a deep green background, while the other plaid has a tan field.

I had run out of the ribbon with the tan background when I decided to add the greenery to the mirror.

Fortunately, the colors are all the same, so the ribbons still coordinate.

Remember, if you run out of a pattern, you can always mix ribbons as long as the patterns and colors work together.

I’ve also tucked loops of the ribbon into the garland on the mantel.

If you’ve ever wanted to make your garland look more expensive for less, I shared my secrets for getting a custom look over here.

Other Ways to Repeat a Ribbon Pattern

There are some other ways to repeat a pattern found in a ribbon throughout your home.

Taking the time to repeat a pattern will give your home a cohesive look.

You can use the same greenery and holiday accents year after year but make things look very different by simply changing the ribbon!

I bought ten large ornaments that had the same ribbon pattern and used them strategically throughout my house.

In addition to a few on my front porch, I tucked several more on my mantel.

We have a large entertainment shelving unit that my husband built in the family room that I decorate each season.

I placed a few of the ornaments on the shelves to create more visual triangles.

It’s so easy to place one on a shelf as part of a vignette.

By using three of the ornaments on the shelves, I made one triangle there.

But the plaid on the shelves connects with the plaid on the fireplace and the stairs too!

Over in the kitchen, I added another of the plaid pillows.

Since the kitchen is open to the family room, this whole space is now connected visually by the coordinating plaid ribbon, ornaments, and pillows.

If you look closely, you can see I placed another ornament inside the china cabinet.

Plus one more on top of the cabinet beside my custom canvas artwork.

It’ll be so easy to give my home a whole new look by changing up the ribbon!

Imagine using similar greenery, garland, and accents, but with metallic gold ribbons instead of plaid.

Or leaning into the greens with more olive greens.

I could even get a more neutral or farmhouseish look by using burlap ribbon.

Be sure to subscribe so you can see how I change things up each year!

And check out our past years’ tours below.

Click on any image to shop items from this post

Next up on our Christmas Home Tour is Heather from the blog Southern State of Mind. Heather’s traditional southern style really speaks to my heart. And her collection of Nutcrackers is amazing!

More Christmas Home Tours from Simply2Moms

If you have any questions or suggestions, contact me or leave a comment!

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