5 Petal Flower Bow

Hello everyone!

Today I am going to attempt to show you how to create a "5 Petal Flower Bow".  That is not the correct name for it I know, but I am not sure what the proper name for it is so I will just call it that.

Original Bow

We originally purchased the bow for my daughter at one of the carts at the mall (a little overpriced if you ask me) but cute anyways.  Excitedly I took it home and pulled it out of the bag to try it on my daughter and discovered that the button on the center had fallen off.  :o(  So off I go to look for my glue gun to glue the button back on, to discover that I have enough ribbon to create this bow and many more.  Mmmmm......  So here is my attempt at making the bow.  Let's get started.

Materials Needed:
1 inch ribbon cut into 5 - 3 1/2 inch pieces
1 alligator hair clip
lighter or Fray Check to seal ribbon ends
glue gun
needle
thread (color to closely match the ribbon color)
center piece (button, rhinestones, bottle cap, or any other cute item to put on the bow center once the bow is finished)

Instructions:

Collect all your materials and make sure that you have sealed all the ends of the ribbon pieces.

Take one piece of the ribbon and fold over and hold secure with your alligator clip.  It kind of looks like a backwards 7.  The fold over section is a little bit less than the half mark for each piece of ribbon.  You may have to try this several times before getting the exact mark.

After folding each piece of ribbon like the backwards 7.  Hold the ribbon in your hand at the 7 fold and remove the alligator clip.  Take the top part of the backwards 7 and fold down to make both ribbon ends meet, making sure that both ends meet exactly.  If both ends don't meet, you will have to go back and redo the backwards 7 fold until both ends of the ribbon match exactly.  This part will be the hardest part.  Once the fold over is done your ribbon will look as if you have created a small triangle tip and a little puffy.  This fold will create the tip of the petal.  It will take several attempts until you feel comfortable with the fold.

Front View

Sorry about the difference in ribbons.  My other photo did not look very good (I don't think this one does either :o) I will try to take another shot, sorry).

Back View

Take your thread and needle and double thread it, making sure you have enough thread to sew through the 5 petals and to tie a knot.  Take your first petal (piece of ribbon) and stitch along the bottom of the ribbon with your needle and thread.  Make sure that if you have a ribbon with different colors (like mine) you created all your petals in the same color direction.  I made that mistake and did not realize it until I put them together with the thread.  I had to take it apart and refold them.  Thread all 5 petals together until you have one string with all of 5 petals.

When you have stitched all 5 of the petals together, pull the thread slightly making sure the thread does not break.  The reason for the pull is to make sure that all 5 petals are close together and you have a little bit of a gather in each of the ribbon pieces.  Connect the first and the last petal and pull the thread again.  Take the needle and thread through the first petal to make sure that it will not come undone, connecting your first and last petals and forming the flower.  You have now created your 5 petal flower.

2 other flower bows I created.

You are now ready glue the alligator clip to the back of the flower and add your center piece.  Make sure that when you are gluing you alligator clip you place something between the two parts of the clip so that it does not glue it self together.  You can cover your alligator clip with ribbon if you like to give it a more finished look.  I ran out of ribbon for covering my clips, so I just glued it bare.

Here is the finished look of my 5 Petal Flower Bow.  Hope you all were successful in following the steps.

Please share pictures of your finished 5 Petal Flower Bows.