Transform cheap gift bows into beautiful flowers toppers

While I was looking for crafts to make this Christmas, I happened upon this neat trick whereby you can give store-bought bows a new look. I never used to like these kinds of bows, but with this new look I think they are kind of awesome and I quickly went and bought two big bags of bows at Target! (The ones I got are not online.) They were $3.99 a bag.

Here is the before and after I cut up the bow.:


{Instructions}

Tip: On the red one I did not cut up the center piece of ribbon. On the silver one - see below - I cut up the center and then curled the ends to cover the center staple.

Here I paired the red bow with a craft colored box and polka dot gros grain ribbon. You could also use hemp string or Baker's string - the red and white twisted string.



Here is another box. I added two sizes of rick-rack. The smaller one is from the craft strore. The large green one is from May Arts, which is my favorite ribbon manufacturer. They sell through scrapbooking stores and some craft stores. My favorite store to get ribbon at is Michaels.