Thursday 31 January 2013

DIY | Making Bows

Hey there lovelies!

If you're a YouTube nut like me, you may know of Macbarbie07, a lovely girl called Beth who is a pretty damn well known beauty guru. She recently posted a video on how to make hair bows using glue. I unfortunately do not own fabric glue or a hot glue gun and have no haberdashery in town which sells it, I therefore had to use the good old fashioned needle and thread to make mine. I thought I'd show you a DIY on how I made them just because they're so lovely and pretty simple to make. I'm sorry if my instructions and/or pictures are a little confusing...feel free to ask me any questions regarding this little DIY project :)




1. Firstly you want to start by choosing any fabric, I'm using an old much loved blouse from Primark which fell to pieces. The size is up to you but you want to cut the piece three times as high (up) and twice as long (side to side), as you want your finished bow to be. For example my finished bow is 8 cm by 15 cm, therefore I cut a piece 24cm by 30cm.




2. Once you have your piece of fabric, you want to fold it into thirds (think leaflet style). As shown in the first picture above, you will need to fold the one part across and then pin it, and then fold the other part across so that the second overlapped part completely covers the first. (I hope I'm making sense) Once you've done this, You need to thread a needle and tie a knot in the end and then do a running stitch to sew the material together. If you're unsure of what a running stitch is, it's just a simple in-and-out weaving motion (picture 2 above). You then need to knot the other end and cut off any excess thread.




3. Once your piece is sewn and is a third of the height it was before, it's time to fold lengthways. This bit's pretty simple, you just want to fold the two edges so that they meet in the middle. You might want to overlap them slightly but make sure that both halves are the same length. Once you're happy, pin one side and concentrate on this piece to start. Thread a needle and knot it and again do a running stitch this time sewing from top to bottom, before knotting the other side, hold the thread still and push the fabric so that it folds up creating the sort of pleated/gathered/ruched effect of a bow (picture 2 above). Fasten this and cut off excess thread.




4. Now that you've done that, your bow should look a little something like the first picture above. It's difficult to do this again with the other side and I found this was easier. That is, by doing a running stitch along the loose side and again ruching/gathering it and knotting the thread (picture two).



5. The next step is to fold this ruched edge into the centre and sew it down to form a bow shape. And there you have it! well sort of... But now your bow should look very much like a bow just, without the middle bit, which is what we need to do now.




6. This part needs to be the exact length to go around the bow and to overlap a little and double the width.  You want to do the same thing as you did in step 3, folding the two edges so that they meet in the middle and sew it together using a running stitch.




I folded the edges over a little to hem them and then sewed the one edge onto the back of the bow (remember to sew at the back so that the edges are hidden), you then want to wrap it around and sew the other end at the back overlapping the last one slightly. 




And then you have actually finished you bow! My one above looks a tad messy, although you can always sew so that the stitch can't be seen from the front. My thread was near the same colour and this was only my second experiment and so is not the best. 

Here are just a few ideas of what you can use them for, but of course go crazy and do whatever you like, within reason, don't like feed them to your cat or anything (I literally just read that back like 'what the hell Lucy', I'm having a 'Jess from New Girl' day, saying stupid things, too funny to take out though, or so I feel)...


The way I've styled mine is to just stick a kirby grip through the middle part as a simple way to use it as a hair accessory. Although I also attempted one sewn onto a hair bobble which can then be used as either a bobble or a bracelet. Another idea is to jazz them up a bit using whatever you have lying around, in my case some studs attached around the middle. Remember you can obviously make them as big or small as you like, they'd also make a lovely hand-made present.



Thank you very much for reading this very long and rather complicated DIY post, I hope you enjoyed it never-the-less and have been inspired to make yourself some super cute bows!

Have you made any DIY bows before? 

Lots of love, Lucy xx

4 comments:

  1. I wish I was more creative and could make arty things, unfortunately+, I can't even colour in the lines haha Fab blog sweetheart! I'm definitely a new follower, on here and twitter!
    Here's mine if you fancy a peek or a cheeky follow: http://thenew62.blogspot.co.uk/
    Rachael
    xx

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    Replies
    1. Haha! Thank you, I shall definitely follow you back! :)

      xx

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  2. I've watched Beth for a while and this one had to be one of my favourite DIY's! Those owls are super cute! xx

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