Making a Big Bow for a Dull Gift

OK, here is the dull gift again--I picked the dull gold paper on purpose so I could use whatever colors of ribbon I had on hand for the bow. It's like dressing yourself. If you have a monotone dull color on, you need to punch it up with big jewelry.

I definitely needed some big jewelry for this one. None of the  premade bows I had were big or interesting enough. So I decided to make my own.  It probably will come as no surprise to most of you that I have a bin or two of ribbons/etc. for gift wrapping--all of which I have purchased for a fraction of their full price.  I went to the basement and  grabbed a few spools of ribbon that I thought would work.   I decided to just cut pieces and staple/glue them down to a circle of scrapbook paper. I traced around a coffee cup to get the circle.

 It did not take long for me to realize that this bow needed a heavier base. I was holding an empty ribbon spool in my hand.......hmmmm...why not just use that...it's very sturdy.

So I began gluing ribbons on to the empty spool.  I forgot to take a pic until I was already half done.  This is the back side after I had already glued a dozen or so pieces of ribbon on.

I just cut ribbon and glued until I had it pretty full.

...pretty full and too flat!  I dug around the bin for more ribbon and found a pretty green wired ribbon that worked great.

I put more of the green ribbon on top of the gold ribbon that I had already wrapped around the box.  Then I hot glued the bow onto the gift.  Now I just needed to find something to fill in the top. Sitting on the table right next me were some gold pine cones.  I grabbed one that sat perfectly in the open space. I squeezed out a big gob of glue and affixed the cone.

There my first gift is wrapped and I don't think it's dull anymore!

Tomorrow I will show you a "manly" gift wrapped package with another similar bow.