Category: crafts

Today’s project was a Bottlecap Bow. This, obviously, incorporates a decorative bottlecap into a hair bow. The bottlecap part of it is fairly straight-forward, but I’ll walk through the entire bow creation process!

Supplies

• Glue gun, needle, thread, thimble and scissors
• (1) Covered Hair Clip (tutorial here)
• (6) 4″-6″ long pieces of Korker Ribbon (PDF tutorial here)
• (2) 8″ pieces of 7/8″ length ribbon
• (1) Decorative Bottlecap

First, cut your 7/8″ ribbon into two pieces, 8″ long each. Then you take one side and swoop it out and under, bringing the end to the center of the length, which should make a peak like pictured below. Do the same with the other side, and carefully resize them until they’re dispersed evenly. This is the technique I use when making my Present Bows! 🙂

At this point I use a plain alligator clip to hold the center in place.

Make a simple cross stitch in the center to hold your folds securely. You can use the glue gun instead if you like, but I prefer stitching because it feels less bulky and more durable to me. My ugly franken-stitches can be seen below, but never fear–if your stitching is as ugly as mine, no one but you will ever see it as all of this gets covered up!

Do the same to the other length of 7/8″ ribbon, then cross them in an X shape, and stitch them together.

 

Center the needle on the inside center of your 7/8″ ribbon base. Push the needle all the way through, making a cross stitch that includes the korker ribbons. This is where you’ll want to use a thimble–pushing that needle through all of those ribbons can hurt!

That was the hard part! The rest is smooth sailing. Hot glue your decorative bottle cap onto the center of your bow. Be careful not to burn yourself–the bottlecap will heat up very quickly! Glue your covered hair clip to the back, let it cool and dry, and you’re done!

Tomorrow’s project is another dinner: Crockpot Macaroni & Cheese!

Yesterday’s project was the Love Pendant, and since I didn’t get to it I made sure to squeeze it in today!

I followed the very simple instructions from the H is for Handmade blog. Since the kids were using my computer I traced the lettering she used and molded mine from that. I also used my 18-gauge wire and silicone tipped round-nose pliers.

Then I simply molded the wire. I ended up mainly doing it by hand and only used the pliers occasionally.

I temporarily put the pendant on a necklace, but all of my current jump rings are clunky so I’ve already taken it back off. I think using a thin chain to loop it on would look a lot better.

You could do this with a lot of words and it’s really fast!

Now onward to today’s actual project…. Crockpot Ranch Pork Chops and Garlic Cheddar Biscuits! Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!