Hair Bows - Not as Easy as it Looks

Last night I took Alena to Walmart and we picked out supplies to make a bow holder for her hair bows and also a few things to attempt to make a bow myself.

I had the idea of getting a wooden letter A and hot gluing two strands of ribbon on the bottom of it. Go figure, they were out of that letter so Alena picked out a wooden butterfly instead. I didn't want to mess with paint, glitter, and all that so I took her to the fabric section where she picked out some fabric to cover the butterfly. Out of all the pretty pink fabric with fairies, princesses, and all things girly, she picked none. And instead, went with a fabric with duckies on it. Oh well... I wanted this to be all her decisions so duckies it is! I also let her pick out some buttons that we would glue on. This time, she picked pink. :)

I've been wanting to try making hair bows for a while now, so we picked out some red and blue ribbon for Fourth of July. We didn't like the choices in white ribbon, so we opted for some little white flowers instead.

This morning, Alena and I sat down at the table and started working on the bow holder. I traced the butterfly pattern on the fabric and cut it out. Then Alena helped me hot glue it on. She added the buttons and I glued some ribbon the bottom. Ta-da! Done. Easy peasy.

Proud of her work.

While Alena was hanging all her bows on it, I started working on making a bow for her. I thought I would just be shaping it into a bow, gluing it on, and it would look fantastic. HAH! Boy, was I wrong! I had the hardest time trying to shape it and have it keep its shape while trying to glue it on a clip. I ended up gluing it wrong and had to pull it off and start over.

This is tedious stuff and my hand even started to cramp up! Pathetic, I know. But I was determined. I started out by gluing a small strip of ribbon to the clip.

Then making a large bow with some 7/8" wide red ribbon. I had to use some thread and wrap it around the center of the bow in order for it to maintain its shape. I did the same with some 5/8" wide blue ribbon and glued them both to the clip with the blue on top. I then took the small sparkly ribbon and wrapped it around the center of both to hide the thread and to give it a better overall look.

Last, I glued the flower in the center.

I spent another 30 minutes trying to make a bigger and better one. That one turned out OK. I suppose these aren't bad for a first try, right?

I don't know. What do you think? I'd love to get better at it because even though it was hard, I still like that it was something made from my own two hands. If any of you has some helpful tips, I would love to hear them!