How to Make Hairbows (a slightly stolen tutorial)

Lately I've had a mission brewing in my mind, so last night I set out to find the tools that I would need to complete it.

My mission was fueled by my female instinct toward accessorizing and my duty to train my daughter up in the way that she should go. Well... and there's also this little issue that I have with paying 15 bucks for a stinkin' hair bow that will soon be lost or broken... but let's just pretend it's all about accessorizing, shall we?

So, I loaded up my little charge and off we went to Hobby Lobby. If you don't have one of these in your area, I am deeply sympathetic to your plight. For those of you who do, every single thing that you need for this project (along with a ton of other awesome stuff) is 50% off through this weekend. Woot! God knew of my bow-making need and He provided. Amen.

Ok, so here's what you'll need (minus the wrinkley tablecloth):



*Ribbon
*Metal hair barrettes (I used the 60MM size), alligator clips or even bobby pins will work.
*Needle and thread.
*and finally, SHARP scissors.
If you have a glue gun and a few extra minutes, I'd break it out too, but it is definitely NOT necessary.

Now, because I'm not one to try to reinvent the wheel, here is the video that I found last night that shows us how to construct our hairbows. It's so easy, she pulls it off in just a few minutes! Turn off the sound if music distracts you.



Cool, huh? And it really is as easy as her teenaged self makes it look, I promise! I was whipping out finished products in less than 10 minutes despite finger/needle calamities, and working with the metal barrettes, which add a little extra work (but they are more sturdy, I think).

If you are working with a thinner width of ribbon, I just made three of these:



And then placed them together like this:





I sewed them together, then wrapped the thread around it several times so it would be more "bunched". Then I cut a small strip of material...



.... and placed it over the sewn part.



Flip the whole thing over and center the barrette on the other side, threading the material through the little hole like this:





Then stitch it up! I rolled the stitched part under the barrette part after this for aesthethics. Here is where you could take the extra step of hot gluing the barrette to the bow, but again, it's not necessary.



You *could* skip securing the barrette with the material that you sew around the middle and just hot glue the barrette to the finished bow, but honestly, I've had a trillion that were made that way and they inevitably detatch from the barrette. This extra step is really the hardest part of the process, but oh-so worth it in my opinion. :)

If you are using the wider ribbon, I cut off a piece of the material and folded it like an envelope before securing it around the bow.



Here are all of the finished products! They were almost all made while watching 20/20 last night with Mark. The crime was solved just about the same time my mission was completed which brought me an unspeakable sense of accomplishment.




Here's what our favorite one looks like on my happy model:






Now go forth, ye, and prosper... er.... multiply... no... GO MAKE YOU SOME BOWS! And show me pics if you do, k?