How to make a Boutique Style Hair Bow

How to make a Boutique Style Hair Bow
Hi and welcome to my tutorial on making boutique style hair bows. This is actually very simple
to do once you learn a basic technique.
You’re going to start with ribbon of your choice. You can use almost any width of ribbon.
The length you choose will determine how wide your finished bow is. You’re also going
to use a jumbo salon clip. This is not a completely necessary piece but I find it to be very useful
for stabilizing the ribbon when you are tying and creasing the center.
You will also need a pencil, a lighter or other type of sealing tool. Some people use
a wood burner or a lighter. Both will seal the edges of your ribbon so that it does not
fray and you also need a pair of scissors and a ruler.
To start, you need to take the grosgrain ribbon that you are choosing to make your bow from.
This is 22 inches of one and a half inch width ribbon. To start, I already have folded it
in half but you’re going to want to fold your ribbon in half. Take your pencil and
lightly mark the center part as this. This part will not be seen in your finished bow
so you don’t have to worry about erasing that.
Next, you’re going to take the top half of the ribbon and loop it around across that
center mark like this. You’re folding it in the same way that the awareness ribbons
are folded. You should see the front part of the ribbon here. Everything else should
be the back of the ribbon. Then you’re going to take the bottom half of the ribbon and
fold it up like this so that you have a figure eight.
Be sure to check and make sure that the center part is still in the center of your figure
eight. From here, you’re going to take the top of the figure eight and pull it down to
the center. It should look like this and then do the same with the other side. Take the
ribbon and pull it to the center.
At this point, it should look like this. This is going to be the back of the bow but this
is what you should be looking at. Be sure to hold the center tight so that you do not
slip the ribbon. This is where I take and use the salon clip and it’s very handy to
use. Take the salon clip and slide it through the middle and then you can take a minute
and look at your loops and make sure that they are the same size, that they’re symmetrical
and they’re exactly how you want them to look.
I would flip it over and look at it from the front too because this will be the front of
your ribbon or the front of your bow and I’m actually going to make a little bit of adjustment
here. I can see that the bottom loop is a little too big and that happens. That’s
no big deal. It’s easily adjustable at this point.
Now just looking at these, they look pretty even to me. So I’m going to go ahead and
tie off the center. To do that, you will need embroidery floss. Take a cut of the embroidery
floss and you’re going to just insert it into the open edges of the salon clip. Like I said,
it’s not necessary to use the salon clips. Some people choose not to use them and just
sew it from the beginning. I have a hard time with that. Mine always don’t come out very
nicely creased in the middle when I sew it from the beginning.
So it should look like this, looped around the middle twice, the parts to tie in the
back of the bow. Now you’re going to slowly tighten the embroidery floss and tie off the
back. Now what you’re going to do is check your bow. Make sure that your loops are even
and they’re the way you want them to look. This is the front of the bow and it looks
pretty even.
If it wasn’t even at this point, it’s very easy at this point to just take the scissors,
snip the middle where you tied and start over again. If it’s exactly how you want it to
look, at this point, you are going to want to take a needle and thread. Stick it in here
through the middle. Just straight up through the crease part. Wrap it around and tie it
and that will ensure that your bow is held tight and secure in the middle.