Girls and Bows

in case you missed my guest post on my friends blog a few days back, here it is for you to see!

 today i am going to show you a very simple refashion. making a bow -or twenty- out of an old vest. although i must warn you. bows don't require much material, you can make them out of basically anything, all it requires is a few stitches and a dollop of hot glue. they are extremely simple so im just saying, if all of a sudden everything you own is covered in bows because they are cute and sooo easy to make... don't blame me.

supplies:
material or old piece of clothing
sewing machine
hot glue gun
scissors
whatever you want to attach the bow to, ie: headband, safety pin, elastic, bobby pin, clip, hair-tie, t-shirt, shoes, etc.

instructions:
1. cut out your piece of material. my square was 4.5x6.5 inches long. (i got these measurements because i knew i wanted a 2x3 inch bow, so you double those numbers, and add 1/2 an inch to each as a seam allowance.) if you would like to make a smaller or larger bow, feel free to change the numbers to whatever you wish.
2. sew right sides together in order to make a long, skinny tube.
3. take the tube, and flip it right side out. making sure the seam is in the middle.
4. flip the tube right sides together and sew the raw edges together
5. flip that right side out and make sure the seam is in the middle of the back.
6. pinch/fold the middle of the tube together in order to make it look like the bow you want. i recommend sewing one or two stitches through all the folds in the material to help the bow keep it's shape. you will want to do this by hand or very slowly on the machine by turning the wheel yourself, not using the foot pedal unless your material is very thin.
7. now you need to create the strap that goes around the bow. you can make a tube by doing steps 1 and 2 over again on a very small thin strip of material you will want to use a safety pin or crochet hook to flip it right sides out or, use a ribbon /knit material which you will not have to sew because they do not fray, use a scrap of material without sewing it, knowing that it will probably fray or do what i did and cut off the belt loops from the original vest that i got the material from.
8. tightly wrap your strap around the middle of the bow, place a dollop of hot glue on one side of the strap
9. press the other side of the strap over the top, this creates a circle around the bow. make sure not to get any glue over the edges of the strap and onto the bow because this will make it difficult to attach to your project that you will be using the bow for. here are some examples of what you can do.
10. cut off any excess

here are some ways you can use your new bow!
hot glue one or two onto a wreath

turn them into a bow for your hair by attaching them to the top of a crocodile clip or onto the end of a bobby pin.

make a headband for you or your little girl or a bow tie for your husband or little boy by sewing it to a circle of elastic. you do this by cutting a piece of elastic to fit. place a safety pin on one end of the elastic, thread it through the strap of the bow. and sew the two ends together.

use it as a broach or safety pin it onto practically anything like a hat, a cardigan, or a scarf.

my daughter and i love our new bows. i bet that you will see the two of us wearing these on our family Christmas cards this year. maybe i can even convince my husband to wear a bow tie out of the rest of that same vest. i will put our Christmas cards on my blog so make sure to check back and see if i was able to convince him to wear the bow tie or not. i'll be taking bets on this subject same time next week. ;)