Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Amanda's Saving Money the Homemade Way - Homemade Hair Bows

With Christmas just around the corner, as does everyone, I have a list to fulfill but a very limited budget. I like to look for simple homemade ideas for gifts. I do some baking every year and this year, I found a really neat and easy gift I can make for the young girls on my list- such as my 3 young nieces. Every little girl loves hair bows! Before I even get started, let me tell you how completely NOT CRAFTY I am. I don't like crafts and I am not good at them. But, even I was able to easily learn how to make these bows and was surprised how easy they are!

Here is a picture of the first one I made:

I had never done these before but within a few minutes, I made this adorable bow! I will show you how to make 3 different but similar bows. They were really fun to make and I have two adorable little almost 4 year olds that were happy to model!

To get started:

Here is a sampling of the ribbon I bought:


I didn't pay more than a dollar for any single spool. I bought a lot more than this - this is just a few! I found some in the dollar bins at JoAnns as well as in the dollar section of Target. Dollar stores also have them sometimes.


You will also need:
  • a few dowel rods (costs less than a dollar each)
  • you can get thin or fatter depending on how big you want the curls in your ribbon. I also cut them in half.
  • a few wooden clothespins
  • plain hair clips (I found them in the homemade jewelry section at JoAnns - I got snap-shut clips and alligator clips)
  • glue gun
  • thin thread
To get started, wrap the ribbon around the dowel rods, held on with clothespins.


Place the ribbon covered dowels across a cookie sheet and put in a 200 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Take out of oven and unclip the pins and let ribbon slide off- it will be curled!

To Make the bows:

1) First I will show the process for a large clip, similar to the one shown above:

This bow, like the first, is a little thicker and bigger. After curling the ribbon, cut 6-8 pieces about the same length. Take a long piece of thread, folded in half and lay across the table. Lay the pieces of ribbon in the middle of thread as shown below:



Gather the string around the ribbon and tie tightly into a knot (Don't worry about the ribbon staying perfectly aligned- you can adjust it). Then just fluff and pull the ribbon around until it looks right!


To get the clip ready, lay out a piece of ribbon that will match the bow and put a strip of blue from the glue gone on it. Place the clip on top of the glue.


Put a little more glue on the clip and wrap the ribbon over it.

Put a dab of glue gun glue on the ribbon where it is tied together and attach to the clip! Allow to dry and it is done!


2) Here is a smaller version of the same style:

To make is smaller, just cut the pieces smaller and maybe use fewer pieces. (on the ribbon above, I used 8 pieces, for this one, I used 5). You tie it and attach it just the same way:





3) Long curly pony holder:

Cut 4 longer pieces of curled ribbon (approximately 6 inches or so)


Gather them together in the center and put a single stitch through it to hold them together in that spot.


After putting in the stitch, take a small piece of ribbon (an inch or less) and put glue from the glue gun on it. Wrap the small piece of ribbon around the middle of the bow and an elastic pony holder to attach them together and you are done! You may need to trim the ribbon a little to make it all the same length.



These bows are fun to do and easy and cheap! As I mentioned before, I didn't pay more than a dollar for a spool of ribbon- some were only 50 cents! I paid a total of about $20 for ALL supplies (the dowel rods and clips included!) and got enough supplies to make dozens of hair bows. This works out to be less than a dollar a bow. These would cost $5 or more for a single hair bow in any store.

Obviously, the options are endless. If you are good at tying bows, you could tie a bow with straight ribbon and glue to the clip. JoAnns also had a huge assortment of little flowers and such- all you would need to do would be glue those on a clip and be done. Definitely a low cost way to give a beautiful gift with a personal touch!

Happy holidays!
~Amanda

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