.lindsiloolabell79: Bow Select'a

Not had too much time to myself over the last week or two, so not blogged as much as I have been doing recently.

So I decided to get back to basics

I have seen the nice big, card bows around, during my internet site surfing adventures.

Namely the Sue Wilson Die, for cutting out bows that you then just glue together.

Everything seems to revolve around these die cutting machines, and, I admit to wanting to jump on the band wagon, and purchase my own eventually...but for the mean time I have to try and be resourceful and try engineering my own versions.

Now I'm not saying this post is about something to stop you buying the dies of this nature, they are probably well worth their money.

But for those of us that are a little bit 'strapped for cash' it could help us to achieve similar looks.

I will post a picture of my templates, so you can right click, and save the image, then you can use it in any technically minded way you like, whether you print it off as it is and stick it onto card to create your template, print it onto card straight away, or even if you have some fancy gadgetry, that will resize and cut it out of a sturdy plastic for you

Here's how I made my bow

i started off by drawing myself out a design template (it differs slightly from the template above, as this was my prototype, but achieves similar results)

Once this was done, I cut the pieces out, ready to assemble my bow

I started with Bow template 1

because the card was a little stiff, I rolled it around a little to help create a smoother curve, then stuck each of the end tabs, back on themselves, so the overlapped in the middle section, see below.

I held the middle together until the glue took hold, I would have used double sided tape, but I couldn't find mine...oh the shame!

I then took Bow template 2

As with the first part, I rolled the piece a little to create the smoother curve

I added glue to Bow Template 2

Then wrapped it around the centre of Bow Template one, again holding until the glue took hold.

I took Bow Template 3

I applied glue to the centre of Bow Template 3, then pressed it on to the back side of the rest of my bow.

I turned the bow over and applied pressure to the middle section, to allow the glue to take hold, and to help the design dry flat, for easier application to cards.