Hairbows {A Tutorial}

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Kenley's first word was bow, as in hair bow.

She has probably worn a bow in her hair everyday since she was about seven months old. Now that she is getting older and her hair is getting longer she usually picks out which bows she wants to wear as well as asking for a bow on each side of her head to keep the hair out of her face.

Boutique bows can be ridiculously expensive! Save yourself some money and make a few hair bows for that little girlie girl in your life!

{Please bear with me for this tutorial, it is so easy to show you visually how to make the bow but not so easy to explain it in words! Please feel free to ask questions if I confuse you!}

Here is what you need:
Ribbon- Grosgrain is best. {Target sells spools of 6 ribbons in their dollar spot. Each ribbon is exactly enough to make one hair bow! Some of the ribbon on the spools is more suited for plain clips than bows though.}
Pliers
Wire
Hot Glue Gun
Hot Glue Sticks
A Piece of Wax Paper
Metal Prong Hair Clips {Available @ Sally Beauty Supply}

To start, clip a few 1 inch pieces of wire. You will need 1 piece of wire for each hair bow so cut accordingly.
Take a long piece of ribbon and form a loop so that the short end of the ribbon is on top of the middle and going off toward your right.
Take the long part of the ribbon and loop it over the middle going up toward the right.
Loop the long part of the ribbon behind itself going toward the bottom right.
Bring the long part of your ribbon over the middle so that the excess ribbon goes toward the top left part of your looped bow.
Pinch the middle of your loops and tie with the wire. I usually start from the back and twist in the front and turn my twisted part toward the back of the bow.
Clip the excess ribbon so that the tail is about the same length as your loops. To prevent fraying you can heat seal the ends of your ribbon by getting the end close to an open flame. Watch carefully as the ribbon should melt together quickly when it nears the flame.
Now that your basic bow shape is made you can begin to cover your hair clip. Starting with the inside bottom apply a little hot glue and attach your ribbon
Turn clip over, apply more glue to the underside of the clip, and pull ribbon to cover the prongs.
Turn clip back over and add a dot of glue to the edge of clip and bring ribbon in and up over the larger end of the clip.
Clip the clip onto some wax paper, apply glue to the top side of the clip and attach ribbon. {Try to keep the glue onto just the clips prongs if you can, too much glue will create a bumpy clip. The wax paper serves as a back-up}
Glue ribbon to top of clip. Before you finish attaching your ribbon to the remaining underside of the clip, you will attach the bow.
Glue bow directly to ribbon covered clip
Cut a small piece of ribbon to be your middle piece
Apply a dot of glue to middle of bow and attach your small piece of ribbon
Turn bow over and glue excess middle ribbon to the clip
Once your middle ribbon is glued down you can glue down the remaining clip cover ribbon over the glued down middle ribbon.
Congratulations! Your first finished hair bow!
While you have all of the supplies out you might as well make a bunch!
These specific ribbons were for a baby shower gift so I whipped up a simple little shape with my silhouette machine so I would have a little something to present the hair bows on!

{I have read a few tutorials online for how to make hair bows and my friend Lauren also showed me how she makes bows. I took bits and pieces of a few different ways to make bows and this is the way that I have found I like them best. If you make these bows please link up in the comments so we can all see your creations!}

2 comments:

Unknown said...

My dear friend Keri, you tried to help me learn to do these! I'd love to come do more with you, if you've got the patience to have me do it again! lol! I still have all those flowers we didn't use for the last project. :)

Liz said...

I'm addicted!!! Emma gifted me a few of her own creations, and now I'm sitting here on my couch, soooo ready for bed, but I can't stop making bows for my girls!! Thanks for the tutorial. :)

 
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