Late Night Dilemna - A Hairbow Tutorial

Today is picture day at my daughter's daycare, so over the weekend, I made her a hairbow with a Valentine's Day theme, thinking to myself how adorable she would be wearing it. What I should have been thinking was, "she doesn't have a dress that comes close to matching it", but my brain only works when it wants to, which, unfortunately for me, isn't often enough.



Here is the Valentine's hairbow, cute, but unusable today.

Soooo....at 9:30 last night, after figuring this out, I decided to look through my ribbon stash, and see what I had. I already had the dress I wanted her to wear in mind (I love my Mom's taste in clothes), a dress she got as a Christmas gift from my parents. Imagine my delight when I realized I had ribbon to match it (and that I would not be getting to bed as early as I thought)!

I apologize now, if this tutorial is not great...it was late, the lighting was horrible (which is why I did this project in the laundry room, set up on top of the dryer), and it's my first one. Okay, excuses out of the way....

Materials Needed:

8 - 10  1/4" dowels, 12" long
ribbon, I use 3/8" (and grosgrain works best for me)
clothespins
scissors
cookie sheet (and an oven)
needle/thread
glue gun/glue
small hairclip


To make these Korker Hairbows, I use 1/4" dowels that are 12" long, secure one end of the ribbon to the dowel using a clothespin. Wrap it around until you reach the end, cut the ribbon, and secure with another clothespin. I put them on a cookie sheet as I wrap each dowel. As you're doing this, preheat your oven to 275 degrees.

This is not the clearest of photos, but it gives you an idea about wrapping the ribbon around the dowels.

Here is the dress (and tights) that I needed a matching hairbow for....pesky little bugger. :-)

Now you're ready to bake. :-)   Put the cookie sheet with your ribbon-wrapped dowels in the oven for 30 minutes. After that time, I usually turn the oven off and let the ribbon cool down in the oven, but I was in a time crunch last night, so I took them out as soon as the timer went off. After they cool down, remove the clothespins and remove the ribbon from the dowels. Your ribbon should look something like this.....

Your ribbon should measure somewhere between 12 and 13 inches. I cut them into 3 inch sections (doesn't have to be exact)...

I use my cutting mat to measure. You'll have 4 pieces from each longer piece of ribbon (see, I paid attention in math class).

This part is optional, but I take a lighter and seal the ends of each piece of ribbon so they don't end up fraying. A little time-consuming, but worth it.

Next, take a needle and matching thread (I used pink), double up your thread, and knot it at the end. Thread it through the needle, and start stringing on your ribbon.

I've added 5 or 6 pieces of ribbon on to the thread so far (and decided not to use the pink and green ribbon that is in the background...)

Keep going until you have all your ribbon threaded on...



YAY!


Now you need to pull the thread tight, and wrap it around the center of your ribbon several times and tie off. You can also opt to use cord, or something similar to tie it off, instead of the thread (like this tutorial here from The Ribbon Retreat.... )http://www.theribbonretreat.com/custom/modules/FreeProjects/PDFHowtoMakeKorkerRibbonandBows.pdf

I started using the thread, because I discovered that just using the cord to tie it off in the middle, left my daughter with an opportunity to pull some of the ribbons out when I wasn't looking. At least now they are all securely threaded together.

For the last part, I used a small hairclip (lined partially with ribbon), and hot-glued it to the hairbow. I find these hairclips at Sally's. They come in boxes of 100, for less than $6.00. I will add a tutorial on making the basic ribbon-lined hairclips soon.

We're done! I finished this hairbow around 11:30 last night... didn't get the sleep I wanted (or needed!), but it was worth it to see how happy and surprised my daughter was this morning when I showed it to her. Ahhhhh, the joys of Motherhood.

Thank you for stopping by! :-)