How to Add Marabou to Bows

Hi! I’m Britt from Charlie’s Halo and I LOVE making big stacked bows. Adding marabou to my bows gives them an extra fabulous touch. In this tutorial I will teach you how to add marabou to bows.

The Ribbon Retreat has lots of great tutorials on making bows, including stacked hair bows. For this bow I used two twisted boutique bows, surround loops and spikes in Lime, Raspberry Rose, Periwinkle and Light Blue Solid Grosgrain Ribbon. I also used starch to stiffen them. Let’s get started!

Supplies:

Ready to stack bows
Marabou Boa
Matching ⅜” Ribbon
Heavy Duty Thread or Embroidery Floss
Hot Glue

Tools:

Scissors
Ruler
Glue Gun
Needle

First, start by stacking your bows. Starting with your first layer, use hot glue to stack them one at a time. For this bow I used a 4” twisted boutique bow for the base bow, 5” spikes, 3.5” surround loops and a 3” twisted boutique bow.

Next, measure and cut your marabou. This bow is 4” wide, so I cut for 4” of marabou off my boa. This rule works well for bows 3” and larger. Use your fingers to hold the feathers away from your scissors while you cut the cord. When you cut your boa, feathers will fly and this is totally normal.

I use heavy duty thread to sew marabou into a loop that will surround my bow. I have found this method to be fast, easy and durable, opposed to using hot glue.

Thread your needle and knot the ends together to double your thread. Then push the needle through the cord of the boa about ⅜” from the end.

Push the needle through the cord on the opposite side. Now you have a loop.

Wrap the marabou/thread loop around your bow, between your layers as shown.

Pull the ends of your thread to bring the boa all the way around the bow.

Tighten your thread and double knot to secure your marabou circle.

Trim your thread about ¼” from the knot. It won’t be visible on the finished bow.

It already looks fabulous, but we’re not done just yet! Our next step will be to add a center.

Take a piece of ⅜” ribbon, about 5” or so and hot glue it to the back of your bow.

Wrap the ribbon all the layers of your bow and hot glue to the back of your bow. At this point you can add your hair clip and wrap your ribbon around the top of your clip as well.

Now that your bow is all finished, you can add a center for extra pizzazz! I used a bottle cap that I made with supplies from The Ribbon Retreat. Check out my bottle cap tutorial by clicking the link.

As always, it’s been a joy doing this tutorial for such an outstanding blog! Happy bow making!

Until next time,
Britt

Thank you Britt!

Britt is an amazing, very talented, bow maker and we are so lucky to have her share her high quality tutorials with all of you. Check out all of her awesome products at Charlie’s Halo. And let us know what other fun tutorials you are looking for.

Now that you know how to add marabou to a bow, check out The Ribbon Retreat’s awesome selection of high quality, awesome priced, marabou! We have 24 awesome colors to choose from. Have fun taking your bows to the next level!

Have a great day! ~ Shirley, The Ribbon Retreat Blog Editor