DIY Burlap Wood Crosses

When our local craft store closed due to the pandemic, I made the decision to take advantage of the situation and shop from my own craft stash. Seriously, how easy is it to just wander the aisles of a store and grab stuff you really don’t need. These crosses came from that decision - we always have wood out in the shop, the ribbon is left over from our Tree Branch Wreaths and the flowers were used on bulletin boards at the church. It doesn’t get much better than that! 

The wood we had was pretty pale (on the right), so I stained both pieces with a golden oak finish.

On the back I attached an alligator tooth picture hanger and two rubber stoppers. It’s so much easier to do this at the beginning than later when the front is already decorated.

Then I cut eight lengths of ribbon, two sets for each board, with enough length to wrap around and glue to the back. 

Before gluing down the ribbon, I ran a piece of twine underneath each length of ribbon, about a third of the way down from the top of the board.

Once the ribbons were glued to the back of the board, I flipped it over and tied the twine into a knot. This gives the ribbon a little curve so it’s not just a straight line.

I repeated this for the second ribbon.

Now all four ribbons are attached with hot glue to the back of the board.

More hot glue on the ribbon holds the layers together, as well as attaching the flowers to the cross.

I absolutely adore the finished product. We’ll have a couple of these available for purchase at our fall arts and crafts shows, and they’re also available for custom orders. And spoiler alert - this is going to be a fun project for our teens this summer. They’re always looking for something interesting and different to do, and this is perfect.