How To Make a Bow

At a recent Team Meeting, one of the consultants, Kristina Baldwin, provided us with a make-n-take. It was a bow made out of a 6"x12" piece of printed paper. With her permission, I'm including the directions here. These bows are made by cutting 1" strips at certain sizes using leftover printed paper that you might consider as scraps. Thanks Kristina for this awesome project!!

To begin, you will need a piece of printed paper (preferably with a print on both sides of the paper). The paper size should be 6" x 12". You will be using this entire piece of paper, so be sure to cut the paper exactly as specified below.


You will want to turn your paper into your paper trimmer and cut 8 - 1" x 6" strips. After making these cuts, your paper should be 4" x 6".


Turn your 4" x 6" piece of printed paper and cut 1 strip - 1" x 4"


Your printed paper should be 4" x 5" now. Turn your printed paper one more time and make 4 - 1" x 5" strips.

The bow is going to be have 3 layers plus the center loop. Line your pieces up as shown below. The shortest piece (1" x 4") is going to be the loop that sits on top in the center of your bow. So, once you figure out what side of the paper that you want showing on your loop, this will determine how to alternate the rest of your strips.

See example below. The loop is the light side. The bottom grouping is dark (4- 1" x 5") will be the first level. The middle grouping is light (4 - 1" x 6") which is the middle level. And the top grouping is dark (4 - 1" x 6") which will be the bottom level.

Next you'll want to use your favorite adhesive and apply it to the bottom portion (1 strip of adhesive across the very bottom is sufficient) of each strip.

Then, you'll take each strip and form the following shape. Overlap the bottoms of each strip as shown. Be sure to keep your groupings of 4 together.

Take each group of 4 and form a plus, connecting the center of the 4 pieces with a brad. Use a paper piercer or tip of a sharp pair of scissors to make a hole for the brad.

Do this for the next two groupings to form 3 layers as shown below. Pile each layer upon the other using a double sided thick tape or a thick "pop dot". Then top with the looped strip.

Side note: My mom made some bows using some new holiday paper that I bought. It was alittle difficult to cut the paper from the roll but after that, it was quite easy to make the bows as the paper was very easy to cut into strips and adhere to each other. Instead of brads, she just used adhesive. This is awesome because now I can have bows match the wrapping paper!!