How to make a Christmas Bow

It’s just October but I’ve already started my Christmas decorating. There’s something about Christmas decorating that lifts up my mood.

There are so many beautiful Christmas ornaments sold everywhere. But I’m never the type to just buy stuff. I’d like to work with my hands and do it myself (read: I’m cheap. I don’t want to spend!)

When decorating for the holidays, you will need a lot of Christmas bows. I thought I’d share this basic technique for those of you who have not tried making them.

I prefer to work with wire ribbons. They’re very forgiving and easy to work with. You can just flatten them when you pack your Christmas decorations. When you want to reuse them again, you can just fluff them right back.

You will need:

1. Christmas ribbon
2. Pipe Cleaner or floral wire preferably same color as the ribbon (for purposes of this tutorial, I’m using a green craft wire)
3. scissors

Procedure:

1. Take your ribbon right side up and roll to make a small loop. this will be the center loop.

2. Twist and scrunch it up like so.

You do this technique of twisting so the good side of the ribbon is up.

3. Do the same technique twisting and making about 3-5 loops per side. Be sure to scrunch them up and hold the twisted part at the bottom with your fingers.

For this tutorial I just made 3 loops each side. For bigger bows, you may want to do more than 5 loops each side. You need to check and match that each loop on opposite sides have the same length.

4. Stack like this with your thumb in the small (first) loop.

5. To make the tails, just make an extra big loop holding then in the center.

Take your craft wire and stick it through the center loop like so.

Wrap it around and twist it tight.

5. Cut the center of the big loop for the tail.

6. Fold the tail in half lengthwise and cut diagonally like so.

The tails will look like these.

7. Fan out the loops and fluff them out.

There you have your own Christmas bow that you can decorate on your Christmas trees or wreaths.

Please let me know how your bows came out. I would love to see some pictures. Please do give me a pingback.

Happy crafting and Merry Christmas!