How to make adorable korker hair bows for your Baby or Toddler!

Korker bows are fun and easy to make at home, to match special outfits or for holidays! They are a great way to make a unique bow for your bow collection... one that is made by you for baby!

We have a variety of bows in our collection, some store bought, some bought from sellers on Etsy, and I really appreciate that every bow is different. A lot of thought and effort goes into the making of hair bows by individual sellers we've gotten some of our favorite bows from. I also occasionally like to make our own bows at home though, because I think it is a neat way to have something your child's wardrobe that is made by you. They are easy to make... even if you're not especially crafty! (If I can make korker bows, ANYONE can make them... trust me.)

Check out my You Tube tutorial, and step by step instructions are below!

How to make a korker bow for babies or toddlers!

1) Collect your supplies:
             - 3-4 ribbons in 3/8" length, 1-2 ribbons in 5/8" or 7/8" length, Scissors, Glue Gun, Baking Sheet, Alligator Clips, Crafting Wire, Dowel Rods, and Clothes Pins

2) Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.

3) Wrap a 3/8" ribbon around a dowel rod that is the next size down from your ribbon (so 1/4" dowel for 3/8" ribbon) and use the clothes pin to hold the ends.

4) After you've wrapped 8-10 dowel rods, fill a baking sheet with the dowel rods and place in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

5) After you let the dowel rods cool, remove the ribbon from the rods.

6) Cut into desired lengths.

7) Connect the cut pieces with a small piece of crafting wire, twist the wire to create a defined center.

8) Wrap a small piece of coordinating ribbon around the center of the bow to cover the wire.

9) Glue the bow to a alligator clip that is covered with a bit of coordinating ribbon.

10) Let the glue dry, and don't forget to finish the edges of your cut ribbon! You can use liquid stitch or a heat source to gently melt the edges so that they don't fray with use.

And then you have your finished bows!

As seen as a part of these fun DIY blog parties, come join the fun and get other great DIY ideas! Skip to My Lou, Sarahndipities, & Making the World Cuter

Ugh... moving!

So here's what is going on in my life right now... moving!!

And let me tell you, when you have a 15 month old, 2 cats, and you're pregnant - it's not for sissies.

The hubby got a new job in Illinois, so we are making the move from Michigan next week. It's taken about a month for things to fall into place for the move, but it seems like now that things have gotten started... they are going in hyper speed!

Our house here in Michigan was listed on the market and received an offer that we accepted less than a week later, our closing date on the sale of our house is in less than a month. I"m thankful that it happened that quickly, because driving two cats and a toddler in the car to be out of the house for showings was starting to get to me - and that was with only a few days of having to do it! After having an offer that we placed on a house to buy in Illinois fall through after the property we were looking to buy failed the radon test, we had to scramble to find some place to live - especially considering our house here in Michigan had "sold" at that point, and we no longer had time to wait around to find something! As luck would have it, we found a fabulous house to rent (since we no longer had the time to close on a property) and it had the same specifications as houses we were looking to buy - 4 bedroom, 2+ bath, & 3 car garage (a MUST for hubby now, apparently...), BUT the kicker is... it is a house that the builders built as a model/office show house and never filled. So we are going to be living in a BRAND NEW house for the first time! Kind of a stroke of luck there, so we'll see how we like it!

So other than just trying to keep up with whether we are going to have some place to live or are not going to have some place to live on that particular day... my main focus lately has been getting holiday gear for the GIRLS (that's right, girls!! I had to order doubles of bows for the first time ever on this last order, very surreal!!) and stocking up on holiday bows. I'll be sure to share pictures of all of the adorable holiday bows I found and also pictures of their new rooms after we move.

I'm trying to keep my shopping to a minium at this point, since everything I buy will have to be moved by the movers or I stand a chance of missing in the mail at this point if I have to order it... so I've attempted to put a few week hold on ordering anything that has to be shipped. That shouldn't be too hard... right? RIGHT?!?!? ;)

Still no nick name for the new baby, but I have a feeling that will come along after she arrives... for now it's just Cupcake and the new baby. Speaking of those two though, I have to share the adorable wall letters that I ordered from Cute Kid Creations - which as you know is one of my favorite stores to get room decor for kids! She did a fabulous job on them, and I can't wait to put these up in the girls' new rooms!

Cupcake's wall letters, cupcake themed - of course...

And the new baby's wall letters - her room is being done in jungle animal theme...

I'll be sure to update about our move as I can and I'm really hoping this craziness lessens at some point. I feel like I haven't even been able to focus on being pregnant AT ALL this time around! This pregnancy has been so different from my pregnancy with Cupcake!

Bow making & Cupcake's Bow Collection

Cupcake is a bow girl.... she's been a bow girl since she was little, she was so good at leaving them in her hair - it would astound people when we would be out & about that she wouldn't take them out of her hair, and I would constantly get questions on how I got her to leave them alone! She only recently has decided to take them off from time to time. People have gotten so accustomed to seeing pictures of her with bows in, if I do take a picture where she's not wearing a bow, I get comments like, "Where's her bow??"! So it's become part of our daily routine that we just pick out a bow to go with her outfit when we're getting clothes for the day...

So in light of our fondness for bows, bow holders are a "must" in our household to keep them all organized... I came across the personalized room decor store Cute Kid Creations towards the end of my pregnancy, and knew that we were going to be needing a bow holder for her room! She does absolutely fantastic work, and like I mentioned in a past blog post about the Cupcake remodel, there is a significant wait time for your items to be done (up to four months or longer in busy times of year) - but it is so totally worth it!

This was the first bow holder I received from Cute Kid Creations, I purchased this ready made holder to get me through until our personalized one was done:

Now I use this holder to keep our flowers and holiday bows that don't get daily use.

Once her personalized bow holder arrived, it matched her room perfectly! I moved all of her daily use bows onto it and it became our "go to" bow holder. (And it also has hooks for headbands, which we don't use as often since she has so much hair.)

Alot of her bows I've ordered from the Internet or have even gotten her basic "everyday" ones at Target and Babies'R'Us... Since she started wearing them so much, I got a wild idea one day when she was about 4 months old to try to make my own bows for her to match specific outfits, and it's become a fun hobby! My favorite kind to make are the korker bows and I like the look of a korker bow overlaid on a regular bow.

Made by Mommy - Hot pink bow with korker overlay

I've been able to add to Cupcake's collection without having to spend upwards of $12+ on a bow by making them on my own, and it's a fun thing for me too. Here are some other bows from her collection that I made:

Made by Mommy - Hello Kitty bow with korker overlay

Made by Mommy - Zebra print triple loop bow

Made by Mommy - Holiday bows & 1 clip

Other Made by Mommy bows!

And this is a new type of bow I'm just starting to experiment around with making... the fan loop bow:

                            

All in all, it's been a fun project that I could do for Cupcake and it's something that she can actually get some use out of as well. In a future blog post, I'll do a post about quick and easy ways to make cute bows - because it really is a lot of fun!

Shamefully, I have another bow holder on order at Cute Kid Creations that I will share with you when it arrives... it's to match the cupcake theme though! So it should look totally different from the ones we already own! 

So there you have it, Cupcake's current bow collection - we love our bows!