Jacob's Ladder Tutorial

As promised, today I will provide you with some insight into making a Jacob's Ladder toy. I scoured the internet to find a good tutorial for making one of these toys. The best that I found was here. You should start by looking there and that will make my explanations below a little more clear.

What I will be able to add are orientation of the pictures (in necessary), how to determine ribbon length for your project, and a helpful shortcut if you are working on this project alone.


Project Materials
Tiles to use (keep in mind that each tile as a front and back).
Three lengths of ribbon (grosgrain usually works best)
Images to adhere to the front and back of tiles (optional)
Double sided tape (VERY helpful)
Ruler
Pen

Getting Started
Step One: Cut out tiles. You can use any size tiles that you want. Be sure to cut them out to identically the same size. You will need a front and back for each tile. I prefer an odd number of tiles but even or odd would work.

For the sake of illustration, I have numbered the tiles so you can keep track of them. The tiles are made from leftover card stock from a previous project. I would recommend something thicker if you are doing this project for real.

Step Two: Separate the tiles into front and back pieces. Make two stacks of of tile pieces (fronts and backs). I have labeled these pieces 1-12 so I have six total tiles. Also, keep in mind that the orientation of these pieces are always vertical (or portrait orientation if you are using photos). Although we are working left to right, the toy works from top to bottom. Now is a good time cover one side of the tiles with paper or pictures. So for me and the illustration below, the "picture" side will always be the side with the numbers showing and the "working" side will always be the side without picture or paper or more importantly--the "gluing" side.

Step Three: Take half of the tiles and mark the ribbon lines on the "working/glue" side. With the picture side down, take half of your tiles and put them in one stack. Take the remaining half, paper side down, and lay them out side by side as shown below. For my project, these will always be the even numbered halves. In the middle of these mark a line down the center of each tile. Make another mark above and below the center line that is one half the remaining distance between the top edge and the center line . Similarly, do the same along the bottom edge. Do this for all tiles in this stack.

Mark lines for half of the tiles

Step Four: Make two piles of front and back tile pieces. Take your tile halves and separate them into two piles. One pile that has lines marked and the other pile that does not have lines. All piles should be paper side down. For illustration purposes, the lined tile halves are even numbers and the odd numbered tile halves have no lines.

Odd numbers on left,
Even numbers on right

Step Five: Cut ribbon to length. Cut three lengths of ribbon. To determine the length of ribbon, take the dimension of your tile in the vertical orientation. For example if your tiles are 3" by 5" you would use the 3" dimension since that is the vertical dimension. If you are using a 5" by 7" inch card turned vertically, you would use the 7" dimension. Take the vertical dimension and double it. In my case that would be 3" times 2 which is 6". Take this number and multiply it by the number of tiles that you are using--in my case, 6 tiles. 6" times 6 tiles is 36". Take this number and add an additional 6" inches. So my length of ribbon would be 42". I would need three separate lengths of 42" ribbon. The additional amount of ribbon will be determined by the thickness of your tiles once they are assembled. Unless you are using very thick materials, this measurement should be good for most projects and you will probably end up trimming some of this off.

Step Six: Start Weaving.  Because all of my cardstock is identical, I have numbered them and have placed arrows to indicate where the top of the image should appear. So, in my example, the top edge is the left edge. If you are placing pictures then the top edge of the picture should run parallel to the left edge.

Please keep in mind--the even number cards are marked with the lines. The odd numbered cards are unnumbered. Place your first numbered card paper side down (with the lines showing up) on a flat surface. Take three pieces of double sided tape and stick them on top of your marked lines. This is an optional step but it keeps the the ribbons in place and prevents them from twisting.  Take two ribbons and adhere them to the tape from the right side (with the excess ribbon moving to the right). In my example, these are the pink and red ribbons. I have used three different ribbons so it is easier to track them. For the third ribbon, adhere it to the tape from the left side (with the excess ribbon moving to the left). In my example, this is the blue ribbon.

Starting the ribbon weaving

Put glue on the non-picture side or glue side on one of the unmarked tiles (in my case, this would be the glue side of tile half #1). Keeping the orientation correct, place the glued side of this half down on top of the ribbons.

The first complete tile

Now is the most important step for the Jacob's Ladder to work--before adding or touching any more tiles, reverse the ribbons on top of the first complete tile.

In other words, take the ribbons and move them across the completed tile in the opposite direction. Remember, the red and pink tiles were trailing off to the right of the completed tile. Take the tale ends of the ribbons and fold them across and to the left of the completed tile. Similarly, take the blue ribbon and fold it across and to the right of the completed tile.

Before adding or touching the tile--
reverse the ribbons.

Next, add your second tile half (one of the tiles with the lines) paper side down on top of the ribbons--DO NOT GLUE. So in my case, I added tile half #4, paper side down so the lines would be facing up.

Add the beginnings of second completed tile

Once again, add double sided tape to the marked lines. Pull the tape tight under this half and reverse the ribbon to the other side of this half. In my case, the ribbons would be pulled tight and move across the tile half so that they are trailing again off of the right side of the tile half.

Reverse the ribbon across the tape--
this is happening across the tile half marked #4

Take the corresponding tile half (in my case, this is tile half #3) and glue the non-paper side on top of this tile half. Before moving on, reverse the ribbons again before adding the next layer.

Keep layering and reversing the ribbons until you get to the last set of tile halves.

When you get to the last pair of tile halves, place the ribbon on top of the final set of marks (this is the glue side of tile half #12 in my project). Trim the edge of the ribbon so that it finishes on the card rather than hangs over and off the card. This is done so that the ribbon disappears between the two halves of this final tile.

Final set of tile halves--
ribbon trimmed

Take the final half and place glue on the glue/non paper side and place on top of the final tile half and you have a completed Jacob's Ladder.

Final notes: While you are gluing the halves together try and align all of the corners in a nice and neat pattern. Be sure to stack the tiles on top of each other when working so that your ribbon does not get loose in the process.

When you have competed all of your tiles, it is best if you place the entire stack under a heavy object while the glue sets.