How to Make Your Own Bows

As the holidays are right around the corner, more and more of us will be wrapping presents.  Throw in birthdays, showers, weddings, and other special occasions and you can find yourself spending a pretty penny just wrapping gifts. 

I'm willing to confess that I'm cheap.  (Yes, you can call it frugal if you'd like.)  I just can't bring myself to spend $7 on stuff that is intended to be thrown away.  I just can't do it.  Just last week I was looking for wrapping paper and ribbons/bows for a wedding gift...even on sale, the wrapping paper was $2.70, the matching bow was on sale for $1.99 and a role of ribbon was $1.50...and all of this stuff was on clearance!

So, I did what every self-respecting cheapskate would do.  I decided I could do something at home.   I headed home and pulled out my stash of ribbons and wrapping paper.  (Acquired at various points for very low prices.)  All of my ribbon, however, is on a spool or a roll.  Time to make my own bows.

I thought you might want to see how to do it yourself, so I took pictures along the way:

First cut pieces of ribbon roughly the same length.  The number of pieces is determined by how puffy you want your bow.  I used 8 or so pieces that were about 10" long for a small bow.  (Later I used about 12 that were 12"-14" for a big one.)  Anyway, take your pieces of ribbon and hold them between your thumb and forefinger in a stack like this:

Staple the pieces to a little piece of paper, roughly 1" square.  (I confess to having borrowed one of the inchies my sister sent to Buttercup.)  You don't actually have to use a piece of paper, but it just aids in the stability.

You want the staple to be perpendicular to the pieces of ribbon, so you'll be able to fan them out.

Using your scissors, curl both ends of each piece of ribbon and fan them out from their neat stack to create fullness.

Attach a tape loop to the back of the paper and then tape the bow to the package.

There you have it...a bow.

Oh, and here is how the wedding present looks with a bow made out of two different colors of ribbon.  I even added spirals made out of the narrow white ribbon.   Pretty, isn't it?

Ikea paper I had on hand, a few pieces of gold ribbon from an old package, and white and gold ribbon I had on hand...all that and about 20 minutes gave me a pretty present to give to a newly married couple.  I'd say I did pretty well.