INTRODUCTION
 

 “Trompe l’oeil” is an old French phrase that literally means “it fools the eye.” It has a long tradition in the art world—and in woodworking too. When you first saw the ribbons, did you think to yourself, “Are they really made of wood?” 
 

Wooden Ribbons makes a terrific presentation on a wooden gift box particularly if there’s something special inside. The ribbon itself is fairly basic, but it’s made in a way that can be adapted to many different designs.
 

These can be made out of any wood.  I’ve made these out of Pine and Cedar and also Walnut and Maple.  Making the bows and ribbons just involves one trick: They must be cut on a scroll saw. You will also need a table saw.
 

STOCK PREPARATION
 

These ribbons are made by laminating several woods together. Each of these pieces as shown are 3” wide. The cedar piece is ¼” thick and the two pine pieces are ½” thick.  You can make this what you want. Experiment.  In addition, you make their lengths according to the length of ribbon you want. It’s a good idea to have the grain of each running in the same direction. Glue them up.

 

 

When dry, remove the clamps and square up (trim) the laminated block. Then lightly sand all the surfaces with 220. You’re ready  to make ribbons and bows!

 

 

CUTTING A STRAIGHT PIECE
 

I wanted about a 1/16” thick straight piece. This is the portion you see wrapped around the wooden box. I set my table saw fence and sliced off this piece as shown. Then I lightly sanded the faces. Note that the laminations are on the side as it is cut. This applies when cutting other pieces.

 

 

CUTTING CURVES  and BOW PIECES
 

Here I mark up a curved ribbon and a loop for the bow in pencil as shown. You are cutting on each side of the pencil lines. This gives you your thickness. You can shape your pieces to amazing curves, etc. The sky is the limit. Again note that the laminations are on the side as it is cut. Again, it is mandatory to have a scrollsaw for this.

 

 

 

 

 

COMPLETION
 

Now all you have to do, if needed, is to lightly sand it up. Then apply a finish. I find spray lacquer to be quite nice and it adds strength to the possible fragile pieces. 
 

I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial! The possibilities are endless with this technique!
 

Thanks for looking! 

Cheers!!
MrRick

Another super tutorial! Thanks @MrRick for taking the time to do/post these.

You're more than welcome lew! I hope more will view my posts and like them. 

I helped make one of these when I was a teenager at my grandfather's shop.  As in handed him pieces of wood and tools.

 

Beautiful work @MrRick.

+1  to Lew and Gunny's comments. Greatly appreciate you sharing your creativity, techniques, process and "secrets" with us. Great tools for current members as well as those down the road. THANK-YOU!

Loving your work and tutorials @MrRick.  My woodworking days have come to an end, but I still enjoy seeing what others are doing. Always loved working with the bandsaw. Spent hours making bandsaw boxes.

Thank you AI B! Glad you like it. Cheers! 

Thanks Gunny and Grandpadave52!

Thanks for posting this - will need to save somehow for future reference. 

47 minutes ago, BB1 said:

Thanks for posting this - will need to save somehow for future reference. 

 

BB1 ... Ask John Morris on how to save for future reference. I'd like to know myself. 

Edited October 28, 2025Oct 28 by MrRick

2 hours ago, MrRick said:

 

BB1 ... Ask John Morris on how to save for future reference. I'd like to know myself. 

You can create a blog and post it here

Good point !

@John Morris, @lew...aside from pinning the thread is there a way to save the OP short of copy & paste into a Word or similar document then saving to a local file?

Just now, Grandpadave52 said:

@John Morris, @lew...aside from pinning the thread is there a way to save the OP short of copy & paste into a Word or similar document then saving to a local file?

 

3 minutes ago, lew said:

You can create a blog and post it here

Beat me to the submit button. Thanks.

Just now, MrRick said:

Good point !

On my phone now. Tap the + upper rite look for blog

Hmmm...I'm not understanding how I can mark this for future reference? 

When I hit the "+" this is what pops up for me

2 minutes ago, BB1 said:

Hmmm...I'm not understanding how I can mark this for future reference? 

 

Me neither!

4 minutes ago, MrRick said:

When I hit the "+" this is what pops up for me

Phone or pc?

Phone