I love wrapping presents. It is one of my all time favorite things about the holidays. Yes I love spending time with friends and family, but sitting down and getting creative with some wrapping paper, ribbons, and bows makes me one very happy Meghan.
Unfortunately with wrapping presents comes a lot of scraps. Unless you are wrapping a shirt box, which wrapping paper dimensions are based on, you are going to have to cut off some extra paper. I REALLY hate throwing these scraps away and do my best to use them for other things. I wrap stocking gifts, make gift tags when I run out of ones that match, and use it to fill in spaces that the paper won’t reach. But this week I decided to try something new with the scraps – I made a bow!
I was wrapping a gift for my dad and the bows I had just weren’t big enough. I could have used 2 bows but that just seemed silly. Then I looked over and saw the big scrap of paper from the previous present I wrapped and the light bulb went off. I should MAKE a bow!
I took the scrap into the craft cave and used my paper trimmer to cut 1.5 inch strips. I wasn’t worried about how long they were, but I wanted them all to be the same width. I wasn’t exactly sure where to start with the actual making of the bow so I picked up one of my store bought bows to get me pointed in the right direction.
I decided that an “8 point bow” was the way to go. At first I was trying to make all the loops and attach them all together at once and that just wasn’t working. I mean seriously, what was I thinking? I decided to make 4 loops and attach them in the middle, then I cut about 1.5 inches off the remaining 4 strips and did it again. I attached the two sets of loops together in the middle with a brad since my stapler a) couldn’t reach the middle and b) couldn’t get through all those layers of paper. I then took my last strip and made a loop to fill in the middle. Ta-da!
Now that I have the process figured out I really want to make all sorts of scrap paper bows. Maybe I can make enough bows to make a wreath for the front door!
Awesome! I have never thought to do this, I just pinned it so I will be able to look later when I am wrapping presents! Thanks Meghan!
Glad I could help 🙂 Its a little tricky the first time, but then it gets super easy!
Wow, that bow looks amazing! Great job Meghan!
This is brilliant! I have so many of these scraps that I’m saving for the perfect sized present, which I never have.
And once you do it the first time it really is pretty simple. I wanted to make how’s for everything!