hair bow holder

So, my sister went a little bow crazy and purchased a (insert large # here) bows for her little wee one.  Then, when she realized she had no way of storing all of the bows to see all of the options each morning, she sent me the following text message:

"...I was going to text you yesterday -- can you make something cute to organize Eden's hair bows?  Not sure if there is something on pinterest?  I'll pay you for it! :) Her bows are just everywhere and it drives me nuts!..."

So, off to pinterest I went....

I searched...

          and I searched...

                         and I searched....

What did I find, you ask?  NOTHIN'! First time I was ever disappointed by Pinterest.  I'm sure it will be the last, though.

So, next, I went to the lovely craft section of my neighborhood store, and I got some Bias Tape (Extra Wide Double Fold).  I got a light blue color (even though Eden's a girl - her room is a silvery blue color), and I also got a thinner package of Bias Tape in Black. Note: I bought mine at Wal-Mart.

If you've never seen this stuff before, it looks like this...

Disclaimer - that's not the color of blue I used.  I'm posting this after-the-fact.

Also, from here on out, I don't have photos of the bow holder in the process of being made.  I do have a final product photo, though.  Scroll to the end if you want to see it!

Next, I took the bias tape, unfolded it so that it was wider than it came in the packaging, and I measured a wingspan plus a little bit more for the width of the bow holder.

I used the same measurement for the black Bias Tape, but I didn't unfold it.  I wanted to keep the pieces of that skinny.

Now, here's where you start sewing.  I took the ends of the blue Bias Tape and tucked them backwards to create a nice looking end piece on either side of the bow holder.

Then, I took the black Bias tape and sewed it off center towards the bottom of the bow holder.  I only sewed it on the ends at first - tucking the ends around the edge of the blue that had been sewed back and sewing it down that way.  I did this so that the ends of the black weren't loosely attached to the blue.  I didn't want this to look cheaply made, basically!

Once I had the black sewn on at the ends, I held it up and realized that the black needed to be secured to the blue in the middle as well so that it didn't sag with the weight of the bows!  So, I sewed the black Bias Tape down about every 4 - 5 inches.  I did a few quick stitches at each point to ensure that it would be able to withstand the weight of all the bows.

Once that was done, I liked the idea, but thought it still looked a little plain.  So, I got out some fabric and made some rosettes.  I made 1 medium sized one and 2 small ones.  I used fabric glue to paste them on to the edges of the bow holder.

All in all, I am pretty pleased with the result.  The only thing I didn't accomplish was making sure my sister and her husband could hang it.  I'm REALLY bad at figuring that stuff out.  So, I left that decision to my brother-in-law.

Here's the final result:

And you thought I was done...
Now that the hair bow holder was complete, I decided I needed to also create a way for my sister to attach the bows to the holder - her daughter is not yet wearing barettes, otherwise, my job would have been done already.

A quick thought came to my head - clothespins [at least I think that's what they're called...my brain is a little foggy from all the sleeping I did today :)].  The clothespins weren't cutesy enough for me on their own, so I decided to dress them up a bit.  In order to do that, I bought some teeny tiny little pastel buttons from the craft section of Wal-Mart.  I bought a couple bags of the same buttons, and started hot gluing them on to the handles of the clothespins.

Here's the final product:

Let me know if you make this! Also, if you figure out a way to hang it, I'm all ears!  That's not my forte!

pinterest, i forgive you,

the craft rookie