How To: Make a great bow from a ribbon

Butternutsage offers her technique for tying a perfect bow in a ribbon for use with cards or gift wrapping. You will need a length of ribbon four times the area you're going to cover. First, make a loop and pinch it with your fingers. You should "pucker" the ribbon as you pinch it, to achieve a smooth knot. Take the other end of the ribbon around your loop, as if you're tying your shoes. Push the tail end of the ribbon through your ribbon to create another loop, just like tying shoes. Pull on each loop to get the knot tight, but if either tail-end of the ribbon is about to pass through the knot, you need to stop and gently pull that tail before it passes through. You may have to do this several times. One of your ribbon's tails will be on the wrong side, so right now your ribbon won't lie flat. Work that tail around to get behind its adjacent loop, and twist that loop until the tail-ribbon is behind it. Your ribbon should now lie flat.