How to Tie Bows on your Cards

Hi there , everybody .

Um , it's Jackie here from stamping jack dot com .

And , uh , I wanted to share with you today .

Some of my , um how I tie bows on my cards .

I know for lots of us , it's very tricky , and some of us just can't manage it at all , and it's taken me a long time to figure it out .

Um , so first of all , the reason , the main way that people usually tie ribbons on their cards is they take a piece , their card piece , wrap the ribbon round from behind and then simply tie a knot , OK , And then a bill .

So OK , now I have to tell you that I hardly ever use this method on my cards .

Um , I'll show you what I do in a second .

And the main reasons for this is one .

Um , it's fiddly because you've got the card front with you .

The bow doesn't always end up exactly where you want it to go .

Sometimes it ends up sideways .

Sometimes it's upside down and you don't have as much control .

The knot can be quite messy .

Um , and the other problem I have with this method is that it's very , very tricky when you've got , um , a double sided ribbon .

So you see this ribbon here ?

We've got lines on one side and crosses on the other .

And if I just do the same as I did with the green one , I show you what I mean , I tell you , not so around in here .

So can you see We've got the I've got the lines on one loop and the crosses on another .

OK , so I tend to use a slightly different method , which is what I'm gonna show you now .

So let's take my card base that I've got here .

And what I like to do is I like to just wrap a a band of ribbon round on my card first .

So to do that , I've done this already .

Just attach some snail adhesive on the back .

Pop your ribbon down .

This is OK .

There we go where you want it to go and then just lining it up across the front like so , making sure it's straight and then just attach it again on the other side .

And I like this because it gives you you can see it gives me a nice straight nice uh , non flappy .

Not sure Quite what the word is , um , banned on my , uh , card .

And also , I can adjust it to make it exactly where I want it to go .

OK , and then once I have that , then I actually tie my bow separately .

And I'm just going to show you how I do that so you can do this off the roll .

OK ?

Which saves , uh , which saves un ribbon .

Um , but what I would say to you is that when you're tying your bows , give yourself plenty of ribbon .

I know we don't like to waste it .

Um , but it's much easier to tie your bow when you've got , um , room to work .

Um , rather than trying to do it off of a tiny little scrap of , um of ribbon .

So what I do is I take my ribbon and I make a loop like this on one side , making sure to leave myself a good tail .

I'm gonna move that way so you can see OK , got a loop .

Then we're gonna make another loop on the other side , making sure that my ribbon is not twisted in here .

OK , so we've got a nice flat .

Uh , ribbon .

OK , then .

All I'm going to do is keeping hold of the two loops across one in front , left over .

Right .

So you've got this , OK ?

And then taking this loop , carry on and just pull it through Under here .

Can you see that ?

And then holding the two ends Just pull , OK , you can see it's a bit odd , but that's not a problem .

All we do is just pull the tails until we get the size that we want , OK ?

And you can see I've got it's much easier for me to adjust here because I'm not attached to the card stuck and fiddling about .

I can just play with it as much as I like .

And so then in order to adjust , all you do is you just tighten right to make your nut and then if you want , I can just adjust further .

Always hold the knot when you're adjusting so you don't lose your bow and then re tighten , OK ?

And you can see that this is a much neater bow than this one .

Ok , so then all I do is when I've got it .

I trim it now when you're cutting ribbon .

Try and keep a separate scissors .

Um , that you don't use on your paper craft because , um , paper blunts scissors .

Um and obviously you get glue on it and stuff , and that will make your , uh , ribbon fray when you try to cut it .

So I tend to cut mine at an angle like so OK , and then I'll do the same on the other side , making sure my tails are relatively even .

I don't get too hung up on it .

OK , so there I have a nice belt .

Then if I bring back in my card front , all I need to do now is take , they're glued up .

Let's see , there will sometimes be a messy side and a neat side .

This ribbon is quite nice .

It ties quite nicely .

So we've got two neat sides .

It doesn't really matter , OK ?

And we'll pop it on there and then we'll just place it on the ribbon where we want it to go , OK ?

And you can see to my mind Anyway , this is much , much neater than this and much easier to control .

And then all I need to do I've already put some snail on the back here is just pop it down onto my card base and there we go .

OK , so if I just show this to you , um with , uh , some double sided ribbon .

OK , let's take this piece back here and I'll show you what I mean .

So if you had , like , say something with a double sided pattern or sometimes you get ribbons that are printed on one side and not on the other , so we do exactly the same , make our loop .

Make sure to give yourself a decent sized tail .

Um , another loop again , making sure that it's not twisted .

Fold over , feed through and pour .

And you can see now that both of our loops are the same , you will get the tail .

One of the tails will be the the opposite side to what you want , but that's easy to do before you tighten up .

Just twist it at the back .

So you've got the side showing that you want and then tighten , OK , and there you have a nice bow that shows all of the right sides .

Let me show you that one more time .

So giving yourself a good , uh , tail make yourself a loop making sure the ribbons not twisted .

Make another loop .

OK , Cross the left loop over the right loop , leaving yourself a nice big hole in the middle .

Feed this loop through and then pour OK , as you get better and better at this , you'll be able to work with less and less ribbon .

I'm just doing it quite large here so that you can see OK , and then you just pull your loops through until you have the ribbon that you the size of the bowl that you want .

And then if you need to just adjust this one at the back , just twist it and then pull .

OK , Remember when adjusting your ribbon or adjusting your bow , just pinch the knot in the centre so you don't lose it , OK ?

And then you just trim it like I have done before .

Um , to the size that you want now , If you really can't get on with both , then my my advice to you is don't worry , don't panic .

It's not the end of the world .

You can still play with ribbon on your cards .

If you have a look at this one , you can see that what I've done is I've just taken a piece of ribbon and made a border with it .

Um , and that's absolutely fine for this card .

Um , if , however , you did want to add something a little extra , then there is something you can do very , very easily , and that's just tie a knot .

Um , so most of us can can tie knots .

We can manage those .

OK , so all we do is we feed a piece of ribbon through and tie up .

It's as easy as that , OK ?

And then we'll just trim it like I've done before .

And you can slide this nut up and down as you wish like that .

So you get sort of the effect of a bow without any of the fiddle of it .

So there we go .

There are my tips for beautiful bow time on your cards .

Hope you enjoyed it .

Thank you .