DIY: Holiday Gift Bow Wreath

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When I was a kid I had deemed no gift completely wrapped unless it had a matching bow on it. My Poppa would work so hard to stack presents under the tree so that no present would have a squashed adornment that I had handpicked myself. When the presents were opened, he’d put all of the bows from all of his presents in my hair.

DIY: Holiday Gift Bow Wreath

Isn’t it strange how such a little item can bring back such amazing and wonderful memories? My Poppa isn’t with us anymore. In fact, this will be the second Christmas that he hasn’t given me his bows. But when I saw the huge bags of them for sale, I knew I wanted to somehow craft with them somehow to remember my grandfather and grabbed three packages to take home.

In the end, things came together amazingly well in this fun, holiday bow wreath. I hope you’ll make your own and love it every bit as I love mine!

Supplies Needed for  Gift Bow Wreath

• 14-inch foam wreath form
• around 100 bows, allowing for some messed up bows inside of your packages
• hot glue
• wide ribbon

How to Make a Gift Bow Wreath

Take your ribbon and hot glue it to the back of your wreath form. No need to cut it, just keep it on the roll.

Wrap around once completely to cover the foam…

and then hot glue the ribbon to the backside and trim the excess ribbon, winding it back up onto your spool. (no waste, yay!) Be sure to glue the dickens out of that sucker.

Okay – now my first go I attempted to use the sticky from the bows onto the foam and it worked. For a while. But then they just started falling off all over the place. So don’t do that. Instead, peel away the back bit that reveals the adhesive and then apply a nice strip of hot glue and then press onto the form.

Continue adding bows, pushing them up against one another to prevent from seeing the white of the form beneath. Before gluing one down, play with it, just like a puzzle to see how you can get the best fit.

Go over the front side, the inside, and the outside. But leave the backside empty (will be resting on the wall, door, etc.)

To keep from burning yourself, in tight spots use a wooden skewer to help push the glued bits down until they take hold.

You’ll eventually get to a point where it’s more difficult to keep adding the bows. Just be patient and take care when using the hot glue to not burn yourself or accidentally stick it to your work surface.

Before calling it a day and unplugging your hot glue gun, hang where it will be and make sure that when viewed at an angle there are no blank spots where you can very obviously see the foam beneath.

Isn’t it super pretty?! I went with the traditional bag of bows I remember from childhood and they ran me $3 for 40. They also have bows that are more color scheme-oriented, so you could always go that way for something a bit chicer!

Allison

A crafter since her earliest years, Allison spends a little time every day making something. She crafts, sews, paints, glues things onto other things, and is a firm believer that a life spent creating is a life worth living. Visit Allison’s blog, Dream {a Little} BIGGER.