Magazine Gift Bows

I ran into this site a couple of months ago and have been itchin' to try it out. I finally had a chance to give it a whirl and I love making these things. :-) They're very easy to make, and a great re-use of old magazines. You start out with a magazine page and cut it into strips. I like using the full page ads as they don't have too much text in them. Also, once the Christmas season starts hitting the magazines, they'll help you get those Christmas colors for your bows on your Holiday gifts.

On these bows, I cut the page into 1/2" strips (I cut the strips above in half lengthwise). You'll also need a brad and something like a thumbnail (to be used for poking a hole). Take a strip, and shape it like a figure-8, as shown. Then use the thumbnail, to poke a starting hole for the brad in the middle of the figure-8. Poke the legs of the brad thru the hole. Make several more figure-8's and keep adding them onto the brad, behind the first. Once you've got a full bow, you can close up the brad (fold the legs down), and ta-da you'll never have to buy a bow again. The bows in the picture consist of about 6-8 strips of paper, but probably could have handled a couple more strips.

These are excellent reuses of magazines, but also a good basis if you want a particular design on a bow. You can print up that design and make the bows out of the printer paper. I tried to make one with one of those paper grocery bags, stamping on a design and then cutting them into strips. I had problems sticking them onto the brad, but aside from that it went pretty well, next time, thinner paper bags tho.