Digital Scrapbook Pages

These are some cards and pages I made with Mira Designs, Safari Sunset Kit.

How to make Cork Screw Bows

Back to my bow obsession... 

In my defense, my daughters loved their bows.

This is how I make cork screw bows.

You'll need a 1/4 inch dowel rod, a hot glue gun, a clip, 
3/8 inch grosgrain ribbon, and a lighter. 
You'll also need scissors, an oven and water, 
but I forget or couldn't get those in my picture. 
You might also need a saw.

The ribbon needs to be acrylic, because acrylic 
melts just a little in the oven (in a later step) 
and this is what makes it curls. 
The bow I'm making has around 96 inches 
of ribbon and took two dowels.

FIRST!!!! Make sure your dowel isn't too long!!!! 
You might have to cut it to make it fit in your oven!!!
(This is where you might need that saw!!)

After you know your dowel will fit, 
tie your ribbon to one end of the dowel.

Wrap your ribbon round and round the dowel 
until you get about four inches from the other end. 

Tie your ribbon off. I wanted lots of ribbon in 
my bow, so I actually repeated this on another dowel.

Now get your ribbon good and WET by running 
it under tap water. I didn't take a picture of this, 
so this will test if you are reading carefully!!!!!!!!!

After you have wet your ribbon, 
you need to stick it in the oven. 
The oven should be set to 250F. 
Don't make it hotter to speed up the process, 
and don't take a nap or do the vacuuming while 
your wooden dowel and ribbon are in the oven. 

You DON'T WANT your ribbon to 
touch the metal rack of the oven!!!

This is why we left four inches of dowel uncovered.

Stick your uncovered dowel end 
in between two wires on your oven's rack 
so the dowel sticks up at an angle and 
THE RIBBON DOES NOT TOUCH THE METAL.

Bake your ribbon until it is completely dry 
and nice and toasty warm. About 20-30 minutes.

When you unwrap your cooked ribbon, 
it will be permanently curled!!! Make lots of different colors!!

Now snip your ribbon into pieces. 

Curled, they are about the length of an adult finger. 

Stretched out, they are about 8 inches long. 

(Sorry about the brown ribbon for the rest of the pictures, 

but I actually need a brown bow for a certain outfit!)

My bow ended up with 12 little pieces in it, 
but it is not rocket science, 

so if you have a few more or less, don't worry!

Now here is the dangerous, exciting and 
extremely anal retentive part!!

Grosgrain ribbon tends to unravel over time. 

To keep this from happening, and to ensure your bows will 

look nice and tidy for years to come, you take a lighter, 

just a regular cigarette lighter will do, or use a candle... 

and burn the ends of all your little ribbon pieces. 

They DO NOT need to catch on fire. 

Just hold them close to the flame, 
and they will melt just a little 
and the ends will be sealed.

You can skip this part if you 
don't care what your bows look like, 
but I will be very disappointed in you.

Now take all your curled pieces and stack them up. 

You need to hold them together in the middle.

Now you need a little piece of ribbon, about 
1.5 inches long to wrap around your stack of ribbon.

Put a little dot of hot glue on your 1.5 inch ribbon piece and 
anchor it to your stack of curled ribbon.  
This is what will hold all the layers of your curly bow together, 

so you want to make sure that a 
little glue touches all the layers of curled ribbon.

Then squirt more glue in place and 
finish wrapping the little piece around.

This is what it looks like...

Now, we want to cover our clip 
with the same color of ribbon. 
Cut your ribbon 1/2 an inch longer than your clip. 
Apply hot glue to the top of 
your clip, and stick the ribbon on.

Then turn your clip over and glue 
the ends of the ribbon to the other side.

Your covered clip will look like this.

Now run a line of hot glue down the top of your clip.

And stick your stack of curled ribbons onto the clip.

Hold it in place until the glue cools and hardens...

Fluff your bow, and this is what you'll have!!!

You can use two different colors of ribbon in each bow! 
(These bows are made with 1/4 ribbon for a baby's head.)

You can make two bows in different colors...

And then stick those two bows on the same pony tail!!!

Now find a victim and put your pretty bow in her hair!!

Never go out without one!

Or four. (Ok, maybe this was a bit much??)

And when your kids tell you it is Crazy Day at school, 
stick lots of mis-matched bows in their hair!

How to make Flower Bows

I have a little obsession with hair bows. It started when my oldest daughter was a baby. She had no hair and I got tired of people assuming she was a boy. So I started buying bow head bands to stick on her (and hats, she had a ton of hats). The bows got bigger as she got more hair to stick it in.
Then I started making them myself. Store bought bows are expensive, and you can make your own for almost nothing.
I'm now obsessed with flower bows. Again - expensive to buy, really cheap to make.

Here is how I do it...

Buy some fake flowers. I only buy these when there is a 50% off sell at my local craft store.

You will also need a hot glue gun, scissors, a clip and a small square of felt.

Pull the top off one of your pretty flowers. This is probably what the back will look like. (Throw the stem away. I haven't thought of anything to do with them yet...)

Now pull the plastic base off the flower. There will be a little green thing sticking out of the middle of your flower in the back. DO NOT CUT THIS OFF!!! You need it!

You need the little green thing sticking out of the middle of the flower to hold your bow together. The whole flower is assembled around this stick, and if you cut it off flush with the flower, the whole thing will eventually fall apart. (Trust me, I found this out the hard way.) But you do need to get it out of the way so your clip will lie flat. I cut it long ways, right down the middle of the stick.

This is what it will look like. When you get ready to glue your clip on, you will press it flat like this...

I use this type of clip. You can buy them in the jewelry section of your craft store. I buy the big bulk package!! These bows are a little heavy to use with the alligator type clip.

Pull the middle, springy part of the clip out. You'll put this back in later, so don't loose it.

Put hot glue on the flat side of your clip. I use lots of glue. You'll hide it later, so the extra glue won't show up.

Remember the little green stick you slit down the middle? Make sure this is laying open as you press your clip into the back of your flower. Getting that silly green stick to lie flat is the only hard part of this whole project. Press and hold your clip down for a few seconds while the hot glue cools and hardens.

Now you need your little square of felt. It will lay over the inside of the clip to hide your ugly glue blob, so you should cut it as long as the inside part of your clip and about an inch wide. Put a glue line around the edge of the felt.

And press the felt over the inside part of your clip.

Now you put that little springy part of the clip back in. (Sometimes some of your hot glue gets in the space that this came out of. It is a pain, but you can just scrap it out with a sharp tipped thing.)

This is the finished product from the back.

And this is the product from the front!!

Now find some really stinking cute little girls and stick this in their hair!!!!

This was my first go at these flower bows.

The girls were very pleased with themselves!!

This is flower bows gone crazy. I tend to go over the top sometimes...

And this is a two flowers version. These are made out of funky burlap flowers I found in a scrap-booking section. I use the big one on the bottom, and a little one on the top.

Got to have one to match every outfit!!

And it never hurts to make a few for your dog to wear on special occasions. (Poor Li Mu Bai.)