Sugar, Spice, and Skulls

I just got a stash of THE MOST ADORABLE ribbon from one of my fave Etsy sellers, chickadee supplies.   (That means you'll probably be seeing several posts in which I try to find the best possible project for my lovelies.)  This pink and gray skulls pattern inspired me to make a double-decker hairbow.  So here it is!

And here's how I made it. 

First, I measured out three pieces of the pink satin ribbon.  I made some loops in my hand to get a general idea of how bit I wanted them.  (This was maybe not the best idea.  Stay tuned ...) Don't worry about making the edges nice; they won't show.

Mark the middle of each piece, and fold one side to the middle.  You can stitch or hot glue it in place.  I prefer hot glue, because while it's not important to have the edges be pretty, it is very important to have these folds lie perfectly straight.  If you're at even a small angle, the bow will look wonky.  I find it's easier to nail the loop in place with hot glue than with thread.

Repeat with the other side.

Then do it again with the remaining pieces.  Once they're all done, you can glue or stitch them together. Make sure to keep the glued/stitched edges facing the same way (all up or all down.)  That way, you can hide them all on the bottom later.

Except, my three-piece bow looks kind of sparse and depressing.

Time for one more ribbon.

Much better!

... Except for one thing.  This bow is enormous.  Way too big to put on somebody's head, especially if that somebody hasn't started reading chapter books yet.

It's way bigger than the spool of ribbon, and almost as big as my scissors.  Oops.

I cut four new pieces, this time 8" long.  Way better.  Then I repeated the entire process above, but with my skulls ribbon.  And I started with four pieces this time.  I'm not that dumb.  Because I want the pink to stick out from underneath, I cut each piece 1" shorter (that's 7", for the math challenged.)

The result:

Then glue or stitch the top bow onto the larger bottom bow.

Now add the barrette.  Just hot glue it to be bottom-most large ribbon.  (I switched this step and the next one - I put on the center button before I attached the barrette, and wound up with a button pointing sideways.  Then I had to rip it apart and adjust.  If you have a shaped button instead of just a round one, think about how you're laying this thing out before you glue.  It doesn't actually matter what order you use here, as long as you think about the layout ahead of time.  Not my strong suit.)

 And now, ze button.

 Lovely!

I'll be adding this and other new hair pretties to my Etsy shop soon.  I'm not really sure how to post them, though.  Right now I have all my barrettes in one posting, but that does make it hard to showcase unique pieces.  However, I'll have to raise the price a little - probably 50 cents - to have individual listings.  What do you think?  What matters more - price or ease of browsing/buying?