For your home, you can use bows as an ornament for various crafts. This is an absolute necessity when gift giving! Bows can be expensive to buy, but they can easily be handmade at home for a much lower cost. A wooden bow maker will help you make a quality product every time. These directions will teach you how to build and use a wooden bow maker.
You will need the following materials:
1 x 4 wooden board
Wooden dowels
Handsaw
Drill
Bottle of wood glue
Sheet of sandpaper
Tape measure
Carpenter's pencil
Make a cut on the board. First, reduce your wooden board to twelve inches. Sand the edges with the sandpaper in order to have smoother sides. Not only will this help prevent splinters, but it will look much nicer if you do this!) Draw a horizontal line on the board with your measuring tape.
Mark the exact middle of the board with an 'X'. Measure a half inch in from either side and mark it with an "X". Using a quarter-inch drill bit, drill through both of the X's you marked before (but not the middle "X"). It is not advisable to drill more than halfway through the board.
Measure out one inch increments from the X's that you just marked. Do not choose the center "X". Continue this along the whole board. Drill holes in all spots, making sure the holes are not overly deep.
Next, cut the dowel. After that, gauge four 3-inch sections along a part of the dowel and cut them (carefully! Using a handsaw. You may splinter the wood by cutting too fast. A neat trick is that taping along both sides of a cut will keep this from happening. Sand down a single end of every dowel section.
Place the dowel squarely into the board. Insert some wood glue into both of the holes directly to either side of the middle 'X'. Push a dowel into each one, making sure it goes as deep in as possible. After drying, these dowels will form the middle of the bow.
The remaining holes which were drilled at 1 "increments are meant to make your wooden bow maker adjustable. Do not use any adhesive in these. The other two dowel pieces can be put into any of the holes. This will change the length or size of your bow.
Now you should use the bow maker. You are now ready to use your wooden bow maker. Place ribbon through the center of the two dowels that were glued in place. Loop it around the remaining two dowels (which you put in the outer holes that you specifically chose). Making a basic bow with a pair of loops requires a single repetition of this movement with your wood bow maker device. Tie around the middle of the bow and then remove it from the wooden bow maker. The size of the bow can be adjusted by wrapping the ribbon around the outside dowels a variety of times. You can make any bow size using a wooden bow maker.