Crafty Cousins: Bows & Brooches

This is really 3-4 posts in one, so enjoy! Do you have any little princesses in your life? Make some bows!

Supplies needed:

Ribbon (satin &/or grosgrain), hot glue gun, candle/lighter, matches, dowel, scissors, alligator clips, feathers, rick-rack, buttons, gems, (anything else your little heart can dream of) satin, tulle, and a water bottle, apparently.

Here’s how to make a korker bow…

First, choose your ribbon.

I might have a touch of OCD. You’ll never prove it… I’m making one with all sorts of pink today. Now, burn the edges (carefully!) with a candle or a lighter. I like the candle so it stays there, and I use it when I need it. Make sure you can reach the wick without injury…This makes it so your ribbon won’t fray.

You have to be really careful with light colored ribbon so you don’t get burn/smoke marks. You don’t even need to put it in the flame, just the heat will melt it.

Now, grab a dowel to wrap the ribbon around. Make sure it will fit in your oven. I use a toaster oven, so my dowel is about 12” long. I use a 1/4” dowel. You can use bigger or smaller, it will just change the diameter of your korker. You also need some wooden clothespins to hold the ribbon in place on the dowel.

I’m using 1/8” wide satin ribbon in this picture. I’ll do it again with 1/4” grosgrain ribbon. When I do the smaller ribbon, I space it out on the dowel so it’s not so tight. Personal preference, do what you want!

Get your ribbon wet once it’s wrapped and secure.

Pop it in your oven, making sure to put it on a pan just so you don’t get lines or dirty stuff or whatever from your racks. Bake it at 200 for 20 minutes. I like the toaster because it’ll turn off so if I get distracted, I won’t ruin my ribbon!

Once it cools off, take off the clothespins…

Gently unwrap it off the dowel. If your dowel is smooth, it’ll slide off, otherwise you need to unwrap it by hand. Do the rest of your ribbons.

I cut mine to a 3-4” length once they’re curled, and burn the edges. Then, lay them on a piece of thread, doubled up, and then tie it all up, in the middle.

Tie a secure knot, cut the thread, and then put a short piece of ribbon around the middle and hot glue it down to cover the thread.

Now, you need to line an alligator clip to glue it to.

Glue some burned ribbon on the inside top of the clip.

Then, wrap it around the top and glue down. For the part you “pinch” together to open, there’s 2 ways you can put the ribbon on:

Loose and open OR

Tight inside the pinch area against the spring. Your call, I do both depending on my mood at the moment. After you finish that part, cut your ribbon so it ends just before the double prong opening on the bottom, burn the edge, and glue it down. If you so desire, you can go to the end of the clip, but I find it harder to put it in hair when it’s got ribbon there. Again, your call.

Then, all that’s left is glue your korker (on the bottom of the ribbon around the middle) onto the lined clip. All done!

Next bow:

This I call the loopy flower. Call it whatever you want! To make this, line a clip like above. Cut 8 pieces of 2.5-4” pieces of 1/8” wide satin ribbon. Make all 8 the same length, but choose your length depending on how big/loopy you want the flower. Burn all the edges, and start gluing it to the clip.

Make a loop with one, and glue it in the middle of the clip, then do a second one right across from it. All ends are in the middle…Keep going around, making it into an “x” shape now.

My pieces are 4”, and it’s not my favorite, but oh well. It’s not for me anyway! Finish the petals by filling in the middle gaps left.

Now, the big decision. What do you put in the middle? A circle button? A sparkly gem? A flower? I took awhile to decide and finally did both!

Some variations are different colored petals, layering different sized flowers, or different middles. Here’s another one I’ve made….

It’s one of my favorite ones!

Tulle bow:

This is one I made up as I went. First, get your tulle in your color you want. Make a loop as big/fluffy as you want the base of your bow to be. Tie thread around the middle, perhaps using a needle to make sure you get a few layers in the knot.

The next layer is ribbon. I used a 1/2” wide black grosgrain ribbon, but I wanted the ends to have a little pizazz. I folded it in half, cut out a little “V”, and melted the edges while still folded.

Make sure to pull apart the ribbon before it melts together. You just want to keep the ends from fraying…

Open it up, and wa-la!

Tie that onto the tulle after it’s the thickness/fluffiness you want in the loop. At this point in time, it’s kind of your call what you put on it next. I chose to go simple and just put a scrap piece of korker in white on top, then a button.

Yeah, this is a scrap bag of little pieces of ribbon, but I use it! I’m not a hoarder, or crazy!!! See the little korker? Yeah, that finished off my bow.

You could also put feathers on, rick rack (also burning the edges), silk flowers, gems, etc. Keep laying stuff on top until you get the look you want! And then hurry and glue it down! See the purple flower? It’s the idea of the loopy bow, with 6 shorter petals, and thicker ribbon.

I didn’t take a picture of the finished bow. Weird. Here, just a minute. Okay. Here it is. Don’t mind the different lighting…

So I used 3 short pieces of white korker, then made a mini-loopy flower (as shown above) with 4 petals, then finished it off with a hot pink button. Hot glue that on a lined clip, and you’ve got another bow!

Final bow/brooch:

Have you seen the magic that is satin? Cut a circle (it doesn’t have to be perfect and has more character if it isn’t!)

Burn the edges to make it curl a bit…this may take practice to get the look you want.

Cut a bunch of various sizes, big to little, in satin and tulle, if desired, and burn the edges of the satin.

Glue the satin from big to small to make a pretty flower. Put layers of tulle between, if’n you wanna. (but don’t touch the hot glue through the tulle, use a piece of satin for the next layer to push it down. Ouch!)

It’s really hard to tell, but there is gray tulle between each layer. Make the flower as full or big as you want. Hint: when you get to the smallest middle pieces of circles, use tweezers to hold it and melt the edges. Just sayin’

On the back, I like to cut a little piece of ribbon, melt the edges, and then hot glue it on so there’s a slit to put either a clip or a brooch pin through, depending on my mood that day.

It usually matches better, but take what you can get, right? So just slide it on a clip, brooch pin, or even a necklace, and make a bunch to match your (and your daughter’s) outfits!