all learned up... with nothing to do.: "Made it" Monday: January 3, 2011

This is my first "'Made it' Monday" post, and I'm hoping to do this every Monday. I will try and post something I made, whether it be a craft, a song, a short story, a drawing/painting... anything that I made during the past week. My hope is that it will force me to make stuff regularly, and that it will inspire others to make stuff. Since I've made a lot of stuff recently, it was hard to choose what to use for my first post. I decided to post something that could actually be useful to other people. So, here goes... "testing, testing, one-two..."

Do your presents lack presence? (Yes, I did just make that pun.)

This holiday season, I made these poof bows for all of my presents. I like them because they are cheap, easy to make, and match every present, every time. The best part, though, is that they use up those leftover strips of wrapping paper that I can never find a present small enough for.

1. Wrap your present, and cut a thick strip of the same wrapping paper. For this present, there was a nice strip of paper conveniently left over. It doesn't really matter what size it is, the length will determine the poofiness, and the width will determine the overall size.

2. Fold the paper in half (longways), then fold into a short accordion.

3. Cut into strips, but not all the way. If you have a bold patterned paper, I'd suggest cutting fairly thick strips. If the pattern is dainty, I'd go with thinner strips.

4. Unfold the paper, it should look like the picture below.

5. Roll the paper up along the "spine", and secure with a ribbon. Make sure the ribbon is long enough to wrap around the present a couple times, and still have some extra for curling.