gift bows! (yet another way to recycle magazines) tutorial added and more pics

[Novismom]

We had zip in our savings this year (new baby sponging up the cashola--and rightfully so!) so the gifts were all homemade and inexpensive. I am kicking myself that we have no photos of the gifts we gave but I can tell you that the bows were as loved as the gifts themselves.

Everyone got an ornament like a snowman or reindeer with the baby's face on the head. Old cardboard was reused and scraps were wrapped over them to make gift boxes. I used a Christmas catalogue that someone was throwing out that had softly lighted trees and snowy backgrounds, which made the bows so perfect! Thanks for sharing this craft, our family is asking for extra bows to tuck away for their gift giving occasions.

[ClemiesGirl]

I can't wait to try this with my boys to stock up for next Christmas!! This seems like the best use of old mags I've ever seen.Thanks for the really clear directions. 

[deliax]

This was a fun project. I posted some bows I made in my photo gallery. I used a small hole punch to make all of the holes. I held the brad prongs up (facing me) and threaded through the middle hole of the strip first. Then I looped the ends (making a figure "8") onto the prongs. I put the strip side that I wanted for the bow facing towards me (which sounds wrong because I was working from the underside, but the loops were pushed up in the final result). I used 1" and 1/2" strips, with 6 and 15 or 16 strips per bow, respectively. I added a small piece of cardboard for a base. Hope this info is helpful.

[babiestarlite13]

Just wanted to let everyone know that this is also a great way of reusing all of that holiday gift wrap that is now in pieces! 

[spurtiic]

I was looking at Danny Seo's blog about how he *just* discovered Etsy and someone on Etsy was selling these bows for about $7 for a bag of 6.  They were absolutely beautiful and my fam knows I am a huge fan of reusing crap I find laying around (e.g. gift wrap consists of cereal boxes, scrap yarn, etc.).  *squeal* Now I can make BEAUTIFUL bows to stick on them and hide their ugliness!    I have these itty bitty scrapbooking brads I bought because they were a $1 and I had to have them for God knows what... do you think they'd work? I guess I can try... they're about 1/4" though.  Hmm.  I'll give it a go.  Thanks SO much for your photo tutorial. 

[muffinsgomoo]

I used one of these for a friend's birthday present and I think he loved it. He even showed it to the rest of the environmental club Thanks for the tute!

[Tempost]

those are adorable bows! great idea!

[rauni]

These are so totally awesome!  I'm never buying bows again.  I told my sister-in-law, who works at an elementary school all about it and she is psyched to show the kids how to make these.  They are always looking for "green" projects to work on.  Thanks for the great idea and tutorial!!

Rauni
Northern Canada

[jungrrl]

Congrats!!

Craftster Best of 2008!

[dancindharma]

LOVE them!!  Its great to use magazine when making gift bows because you can get so many different colors out of the same magazine!  I've also seen it done with newspaper strips but I haven't tried that yet...I don't know if it will be too delicate to work with for me.  Also, we've used strips of coloring book pages that children have colored which is really cute too!  There's only so many papers you can put on the fridge so its a great alternative to throwing out all the paper work!