Like many people I can lose a good hour or two to Pinterest, and I often pin craft things that I think I might make and usually I promptly forget about them in the hubbub of life. But when I saw this tutorial from How about Orange showing how to make gift bows from a magazine page I knew one day I'd be giving it a go.
I do like a good magazine and have quite a few here, including a large back catalogue of Good Food and Olive - don't worry I didn't use those. Usually I don't keep old copies of Good Housekeeping but on this occasion I'm glad I did.
I made the first one following the tutorial with strips 3/4" wide and while I was impressed with how easy it was to make, it was a little big for my liking. So I made another one with strips 1/2" wide and while this was a better size it was much more fiddly, but not impossible to do. Deciding to give it another shot I made another with strips 5/8" wide and that worked much better for me.
With the strips cut to varying lengths, I folded and twisted the eight lengths. Initially I found this confusing to do but soon got into a rhythm. For this stage I used a staple because it seemed a lot easier than glueing, and because I couldn't find the staple-less stapler I have!
Next I assembled each layer of the bow so the loops were evenly spaced and secured these. In the larger version I used a staple here too, but on the smaller versions I used glue dots (or part of glue dots).
Then it's time to assemble the layers, again glue dots work well here.
And finally add the shortest length rolled into a circle in the middle of your bow.
And there you have it, a gift bow.
Or in my case three gift bows!
I think they look great, and I'll be making some more - I chose colourful pages from the magazine, but I think you could use any page, even one full of text. I think you could also use the offcuts from wrapping paper for a coordinated effect. The possibilities are endless!
What do you think?
