Tutorial: How to Tie the Perfect Bow

One of the big jumping off points for my Witch’s Tea Party was this black and white striped ribbon. I just loved how clean and crisp the pattern is, and wanted to be sure to incorporate lots of bows made from the ribbon. But there is a trick to getting your bows just right. I’ll show you how to tie the perfect bow — plus my easier way to secure your bows to your party decor.

Tying the perfect bow really only takes four easy steps.

Bow-tying Instructions

1 – For a bow that is 5″ wide with 5″ long tails, cut 28″ of ribbon. Arrange the ribbon in an M shape.

2 – Pinch together the left point of the M and cross it over the right point of the M. That should create a small loop at the bottom of the crossed points.

3 – Pull the left point through the loop.

4 – At this point, you should have a loose bow. Tighten the left and right points until you have an even bow.

Bonus Tip

It is much, much easier to tie the perfect bow and then attach it to your party decor with some floral wire than it is to try to tie the perfect bow around something, like a pumpkin stem. So, here’s how to add the floral wire to the bow.

• When you get to step 4 and have the loose bow, slide 7″ of floral wire in the back of the bow’s knot (shown below).
• Tighten the bow as shown above.
• Wrap the wire around the object to which you want to attach the bow.

Here are the bows at my Witch’s Tea Party.

On the back of chairs…

On top of pumpkins…

I know tying pretty bows was something that always used to befuddle me. I figured that if I could tie my shoe laces, I should be able to tie a bow, right? But they always came out kind of twisty and uneven.

This technique makes it so much easier to get a prefect bow every time. Will you try it?