Make ribbon bows from old magazines

Don't throw out old magazines - you can use them to make these colourful ribbon bows for gifts and presents for family and friends. Thanks to howaboutorange for their inspiration with this one!

 

 

Browse through old magazines for pages that have a lot of solid colour on them. I was lucky to find two pages in different magazines that were the perfect colour for this project.

Use a craft knife, steel ruler and a cutting mat to cut [3] strips of 20cm and 18cm long and then [2] strips of 16cm long. The last strip is 5cm long.

Starting with one of the longer strips, twist around as show on the left. Place a sticky dot at the end of the strip to stick in place. Twist the other end in exactly the same way but from the other side to create two equal bow ends. Fasten the end of the paper with a sticky dot. Twist all the strips in this way, using sticky dots on the ends to fasten securely. The small strip you will fold into a circle, fastening the end with a sticky dot.

 

 

Layer the three larger strips, using a sticky dot between each layer and then continue adding the medium and small strips. Before sticking down, make sure that the strips are equally spaced around the centre and that the length matches that of the previous strips.

Place a sticky dot on the back of the bow, but leave the backing strip in place so that the ribbon bow is ready for use whenever you need it.