A Heart for Home has a great tutorial over here for how to make your own homemade gift bows from recycled magazine pages. I love this idea–especially since many of us probably have some extra magazine pages we could use from free magazine subscriptions we've signed up for!
Have a simple and frugal Christmas tip? Email it to me, along with pictures, and I might feature it here in the next few weeks!
What a great idea! I have so many magazines that end up in the recycling bin after I rip out the pages I want to save. And I’m too cheap to buy bows at the store, yet I love the look of bows on presents. I’m going to rummage through the recycling tub right now to save some magazines for this fun craft!!
I just made some bows and they were so fun to make. They turn out so cute. National Geographic has sturdier and glossier paper than the Women’s Day magazine but both worked fine. I used a needle and double thread to tie mine as I didn’t have any brads. Knot the thread and then assemble the bow right on the needle. When the bow is assembled, cut the thread leaving several inches to tie it with. I tied a piece of yarn right down at the knot in order to hold so the thread wouldn’t slip back through. Clear as mud, huh!!!!
Awesome! I’m going to do this with my two oldest children for a homeschooling activity when we have our Christmas craft day! They will love it!
Thank you so much for posting this!! I had seen some bows made from newspaper and always wondered how they did it!
Just made 5 of these today! Thanks for the link! I’ve always wondered how to do that. 😀
This is soo cool! Thank you for sharing the link with us, I will definitely try this one out since I have tons of magazine laying around in the house.
I have to agree with Megan. While this idea is cute, creative, frugal, AND green, as far as I’m concerned it is the opposite of simple! But I know many will enjoy it.
Thanks. That is too cute. I’m going to give it a whirl.
So cool, can’t wait to try it out!
We have plenty of magazines around the house!
My girls were just asking if I could buy them “professional-looking” bows to wrap their friends’ Christmas presents. I am printing this out and handing it to them. 🙂
I might try this with leftover strips of wrapping paper from all my Hallmark deals mixing and matching all the patterns.
I love your website, and love the idea of using recycled materials for bows, but I have to say this makes the holidays a bit un-simple!!
So stinkin’ cute!!!
I’m putting the kids to work tonight!!!
thanks!
Those look really cool! Think of all the possibilities!
Check out what I did with my leftover photo cards from Seehere. I made cute Xmas tree decorations with them using edging scissors and ribbon! I was hoping for my 1 and 2 year olds leave my ornaments alone and only take off the pictures of themselves and it worked LOL!
http://workinthedeals.blogspot.com/2009/12/need-idea-of-what-to-do-with-your-extra.html
Thanks for the link! That is a great idea!
Those are gorgeous!!!!! What a great idea!
When I first saw this, I thought, “There’s no way I could do this,” but when I checked out the tutorial I thought “Why not?” What a great idea and I look forward to my first bow making endeavor!