TUTORIAL: Making Bows

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... well actually no. We've been enjoying lovely temperatures and only had one little snow last week. BUT...the calendar does move forward whether winter weather blows in or not. Knowing that my Christmas decorating is right around the corner I'm starting to put together some things for the outside, namely my urns.

This is the time, while there is no snow and a good walk in the woods is still possible, when I start gathering dead fall; pine branches, birch limbs, pine cones, and maybe some dogwood (red sticks). I have some lovely red stars I use year after year and this year I wanted some swanky new bows.

The local go-to place for all upscale Christmas decor is selling bows for $5 and up, the price climbing higher and higher the bigger the bows, so I set out to make my own. And they turned out lovely.

Here's how you do it:


Materials

Burlap or Ribbon
Floral wire (pipe cleaners work, if you ribbon is not too heavy)
scissors









Step one: Cut your wire about the length of your arm. You want a lot because you'll need a bit sticking out the back to tie on to your tree or branch or whatever.





Step two: Unravel your ribbon a bit, decide how long you want the tail to be and the fold the ribbon over itself. You can adjust how big the loops are.





Step three: Now, fold the ribbon back and forth like an according, making sure your next loop is slightly smaller than the last.





Step four: Gather the ribbon at the centre back, adjusting loops to make sure they are all the right size and arranged nicely.





Step five: Use your wire to fasten this centre bunch. Wrap the wire around a few times, keeping it taut and then twist at the back. Make sure you twist a number of times (maybe ten) before letting go.





Step six: Now you can cut off the ribbon end making sure its the same or similar length as your first tail.

Voila!





My roll of burlap made 3 BIG bows, and one smaller bow with no tails.

Burlap $10 (at Michael's)
Wire $3.99 (Michael's again)

I figure these bows would cost me $8-$10 if I bought them at that swanky store, so I am quite pleased.