Petunia+Poppy: The Blog

I am a bow girl. 

My little one, now 6 months old, is starting to grow some hair!  I am excited to actually be able to clip hair things directly in her hair instead of on a headband!

I made several of these bows when she was teeny.  I love them because they have "no slip grip" to keep them from sliding out of baby fine hair.  I even use them to hold back my three year old's bangs (that she cut herself) when her hair is pulled back in a pony tail.

Here is the tutorial I followed (makeit-loveit).  I found it on pinterest:

First of all, everyone has their own technique.  And there are probably a variety of no-slip grip solutions out there.  This is just what I did and what I used.  All worked really well for me. 

When I was first trying to make a bow that would stay in baby fine hair, I remember seeing bows online that had a no-slip grippy on it.  Some of it looked like velvet, other stuff looked sticky.  Some people used velcro and others used magnet material.  We didn’t have a lot of money and so I was trying to figure out a cheap solution.  I remember walking around Wal-Mart one day, trying to decide what I could use to re-create that no slip grip, and I walked by rows of this shelf liner stuff and had an “ah-ha” moment.  This liner material keeps things from slipping in cupboards and on shelves…….why not baby hair.  So I started using it on my hair clips, and it worked like a charm.

image source

And just when you think you have the best idea ever……..you realize other people have it too.  Ha!  Because I have seen other people use this stuff to make their own bows since I thought it up for myself that one day.  How funny!  I swear, we should all participate in a huge think-tank and share all sorts of tricks and secrets.  It would save us all a lot of grief.

Anyway, to make these hair bows (without actually tying a bow), I used 3/8 inch ribbon.  (Grosgrain works best in my opinion.)  I cut 3 pieces that are 4 inches long.  I also use a double prong hair clip that I always buy at Sally Beauty Supply….and they’re about 1 3/4 inches long.  (I found similar ones online here, in case you don’t have a Sally’s.)  Then I cut a piece of the shelf liner that is the same size as the prong section……so about 1 and a  1/4 inch by 1/3 of an inch.  And a piece of felt that is about the same size.

To begin, grab your roll of ribbon and heat seal the end (I use a lighter).

Then hot glue about a 1/2 inch of the end of the ribbon to the very bottom of the clip with the right side of the ribbon facing out (if you have a right and wrong side).

Then add a strip of hot glue to the next section of ribbon…

…..and then fold it around the contours of the pinch part of the clip.  (Don’t worry, the clip will still pinch and the glue won’t affect the spring at all.)

Then measure how much more ribbon you’ll need by stretching it to the tip of the clip, then fold it back up the length of the prongs.  Cut the ribbon off.

Heat seal this end of the ribbon now too.

Now add a long strip of hot glue down the back side of the rest of the ribbon.  Then lay it flat across the top of the top prong, then fold it under towards the bottom of that top prong…..to completely conceal that top prong.  Press the ribbon together to seal the glue together, and keep the ribbon in place.

Now, grab your 3 pieces of 4 inch long ribbon.  Tie a single knot in the center of one of the pieces of ribbon.   Try to make it a neat little knot and keep the two ends flat and laying in the same direction.  Heat seal the ends of the 2 un-tied pieces.

Then grab one of the plain pieces and bend it into a circle.  Overlap the ends by about a 1/3 of an inch and then hot glue them together (image on left).  Then pinch the circle right in the center, creating half of your bow shape, and add a little dot of hot glue to the inside center to keep it pinched together (image on right).

Do the same thing with the other piece of ribbon.  Then cross the two pieces together……not into an actual “X”, more like a squashed one.  Add a dot of glue between the two, to keep them together.

Then place the piece of ribbon with the knot in the middle, right in the center of the squashed “X” (image on the left).  Place a dot of hot glue right under the knot, so it doesn’t move around.  Turn the bow over and cut off the long ends just a bit and glue them down on the back side (image on the right).

Now, glue the piece of shelf liner to the piece of felt.  Press the two layers together. 

CAUTION: this can get hot.  Test it with your fingers and wait until the glue has cooled from hot to warm and then squish the 2 layers together.  Glue will most likely ooze out.  Just peel it off your fingers and continue on!!

Trim off the excess along  each edge, making a nice clean line around all sides.

Then hot glue the felt side to the top prong.

Then glue the bow to the very top of the clip…..right to the ribbon.

Why I do the bows this way:

• I make the bows in parts so that the bow looks very clean and even.  You can always tie some ribbon into a bow and then glue it onto a clip……but it’s hard to get a nice even bow that way.  It’s totally just preference though.
• I don’t wrap ribbon around the bottom prong because it’s hard to slide it through hair (like for older girls pony tails and such) if there is ribbon on the bottom.  If you leave it bare, it can slide into hair much easier.
• I don’t put the shelf liner on both sides  of the prongs because of the reason mentioned above…..I want to keep the bottom prong bare.

And that’s it. 

  

Also . . . A friend of mine told me about a website called wholesale girls, where you can find lots of headbands and other accessories  -- super cheap!  I was spending $4 for elastic headbands (to pin bows on) that they sell on their site for $.79 or less!  But it looks like we're headed out of the headband stage . . . Yay for hair!