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March 30, 2012 By Priscilla Medders 6 Comments

5 Ways to Tie a Simple Bow

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Box o' Bows

Nothing dresses up a gift quite like a simple bow. We’ve posted a few how-to’s showing how to tie a fancy bow, but the simple bow deserves some love too. We’d like to share a few tricks for tying a perfect, straight bow every time – it IS possible! And by the way, if you have them, fabric scissors are best for trimming the ends.

Bowtie bow1. The Bow-Tie Bow

Depending on the colors you choose, this style can work well for a masculine gift. Start with two ribbons in different widths. First, make a ring shape with the wider ribbon, and flatten as shown (below, left). This becomes the bow. Lay the bow face down (one end of the ribbon will be inside the bow and one end will be facing you). Cut a piece of the narrow ribbon, long enough to make a band that wraps around the box, and lay it across the bow, then wrap a shorter piece around the two and tie a simple knot as shown (below, middle).

Steps to make a bow-tie bow
Pull tight and shape the bow until it looks good to you; this might take a bit of trial and error. You can pull more of the bow out on the sides to make it fluffier, as we did in the first photo. Then lay the bow across the box, trim and tape the ends of the band underneath the box, and trim the tails of the bow tie. (For another version of this style, see Ruffled Blog.)

The elegant bow2. The Elegant Bow

This is a variation of the Bow-Tie bow above, using just use one size ribbon. You might use contrasting colors of the same size ribbon for a more playful look. Trimming the tails of the bow parallel to the edge of the box seems to look best with this style. We used a solid grosgrain ribbon here, but because this is such a simple bow, a pattern would look great too.

Classic parallel bow3. The Classic Parallel Bow

How many times have you tied a simple, shoelace-style bow and wondered why it wouldn’t lay straight? We did some experimenting and discovered that, not only is it possible to control whether the bow is straight or not, you can also control whether the bow lies parallel to the ribbon (at right) or perpendicular to the ribbon.

How to make a parallel bow
To make a parallel bow, place the box on top of the ribbon and fold the left end over the right as shown (we stapled together two contrasting pieces to make things easier to follow). Tuck the top ribbon under, then form a loop with the right side. Folding the loop down and to the left (see below), pull the left-hand ribbon down from the back on top of the loop, then tuck through the middle of the bow. When you pull the loops tight, the bow will lay parallel to the band of ribbon going around the box.

How to tie a parallel bow

Classic perpendicular bow4. The Classic Perpendicular Bow

This style is especially handy when you are wrapping a longer rectangle. To make a perpendicular bow, follow the instructions for the bow above up until you are ready to wrap around the loop. This time, instead of pulling the left piece on top of the loop, pull it to the front first and THEN wrap it in front of the loop, and finally, tuck through the middle (see below). This allows the loops to turn sideways.

How to tie a perpendicular bow
Tiffany-style bow5. The Tiffany-Style Bow

We love this tutorial for a classic bow that wraps around all four sides of a box and unties with one pull. Vary the look with wide or thin ribbon, and whatever color or texture the occasion might call for!

See all the ribbon used in this post

Grosgrain Ribbon – Organza Ribbon – Satin Ribbon

Priscilla Medders

Priscilla Medders is a graphic designer who lives in Nashville. She enjoys singing and playing music with her husband, Cheyenne Medders. In addition to contributing to the Nashville Wraps Blog, she also blogs about wellness and studies homeopathy.

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Filed Under: How Tos, Offering a Gift Wrapping Service, Packaging Tagged With: easy bows, how to make gift bow, how to tie bow

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. rippln invite says

    August 8, 2013 at 7:12 pm

    nice post ++++++ thanks thumbs up 🙂

    Reply
  2. seungho says

    June 5, 2012 at 2:06 am

    Wow! So cute!
    Really good idea!

    Reply
  3. JoLynn Spruance says

    May 8, 2012 at 3:58 pm

    I love the craft boxes and bags on this site. Check out how I have used them: http://spruance.blogspot.com/2012/05/bags-boxes.html

    J and K

    Reply
    • Priscilla says

      May 18, 2012 at 8:55 am

      Thanks for the link, JoLynn! Love the creative ways you’ve used our packaging!!

      Do you mind if we pin to our Customer Images board?
      http://pinterest.com/nashvillewraps/customer-images-we-love/

      Reply
  4. Amanda Collins says

    April 19, 2012 at 10:00 am

    Wow!!! Truly simple, but yet very trendy!! Thanks so much for sharing!!!

    Reply
  5. Susan Klinner says

    April 3, 2012 at 7:50 pm

    Oh thank you so much for this wonderful information on how to tie a bow. To be honest, I have always been bow-challenged. I always get my mother to tie my bows, but after reading this post, I think I can do it! Thank you so much!

    Reply

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