Make Great Bows

Right around this time of year I always get a lot of questions about how to make nice bows (remember I said last week that we have 2 months til Christmas?) so I decided that bow making would probably be a good topic for today's blog.

The easiest ribbon to make a bow out of is wired ribbon. Lucky for you, Ben Franklin always brings in a lot of wired ribbon just in time for Christmas and that's the kind of ribbon I'm using in the blog today.

To make this beautifully large bow, all I used is ribbon, a pipe cleaner, scissors, and the Bowdabra bow maker. (You don't need the Bowdabra to make beautiful bows, but it does help a lot.)

To begin, insert your (color coordinated) pipe cleaner into the Bowdabra as shown. The pipe cleaner is what is going to hold your bow together.

Start creating your bow by accordion folding the ribbon into the Bowdabra. Make sure that your loops on either side of the Bowdabra are the same size. This makes a symmetrical bow. In this picture my loops are about 3 inches long and the finished bow comes out about 6 inches in diameter.

Once you have the amount of loops you want (I like to do odd numbers like 5 or 7 loops plus 1 for a center loop) cut your ribbon. If you want a tail on your bow, add it in now, right on top of your finished loops.

Use the small plastic piece that comes with the Bowdabra (I call it the smoosher) to push and smoosh your ribbons all the way to the bottom of the bow maker.

Carefully remove your ribbon from the bow maker and use the pipe cleaner like a twist-tie to secure your bow. The pipe cleaner can also be used later on to attach the bow to your gift or piece of decoration.



Create your finished look by opening up the loops of ribbon to make your bow nice and full. That's all there is to it! Wired ribbon is always great to use because even if the bow gets smashed it's super easy to re-fluff it and put it back into shape.

If you have any questions about bow making or ribbons, please don't be afraid to ask, we're always happy to help.

Have a bountiful bow-day!

Puna @ Enchanted Lake