Making Tiny Bows

Oh my gosh I love this little trick to make tiny bows! I have had this in my file since 10/14, I just came across it again and immediately made one to see how hard it'd be (gotta say the original instructions found on Pinterest were a little confusing) and it isn't difficult at all! I took lots of one-handed pictures to break down the steps but I promise this is easy to do, and way easier than trying to tie 1" bows by hand. It seems like many steps but stay with me and you'll see how simple it is to make a little bow using a fork.

1. Cut a piece of ribbon about 6" long. At first I used curly ribbon which worked ok but once the bow was made it came undone, I think the ribbon is too slippery. So I used thin fabric ribbon and it worked beautifully. I'm not sure how wide your ribbon could be for this to work, mine is 3/8" and I'm sure 1/4" would be good too. I'll have to experiment with wider and see what happens. 

2. Lay your fork in the center of the ribbon:

3. cross the left side over the front of the fork, then cross the right side tail over top of the left tail and feed it down thru the middle tine of the fork:

4. bring what was originally the left tail (now it's on the right) up over the top and feed down thru the middle tine. Now both tails are at the back of the fork:

5. pull both tails to tighten, you can see the bow taking shape:

6. turn the fork over and tie the tails in a tight knot:

7. Here's what it looks from the front of the fork after tying the tails:

8. slip the bow off the fork:

9: to finish, fold the end of the tail in half lengthwise and cut on a diagonal - leave as much length as you like, I cut mine tails short so it lays right underneath the bow:

I guess you could change the size of the bow depending how wide your fork is! My regular dinner fork created a 1" bow. 

FYI I just made one with 5/8" grosgrain ribbon and while it worked it's not as cute in my opinion. Maybe if I left the tails longer it'd look better. You can only use ribbon that is thin enough to weave thru the tines of your fork, if you have long forks you'll be able to use wider ribbon.