Using What You Got: Wrapping Paper Bow Tutorial

So something I can't stand is to go out and spend money buying gift bag accessories (bows, tags, etc) when it is just going to get ripped up anyway. I had a small internal debate with myself on if I should waste money going to the dollar store to buy a gift bag and bow for some upcoming birthdays and baby showers and after much deliberation, I told myself "nah". Of course, if you know me, (and even some of my closest friends) we always recycle our gift bags from previous parties and just reuse for the next event if deem-able.  So I did happen to have some left over wrapping paper that is neutral and I thought "Hey, why not just make a bow to go on top?" So I never really knew the official word for the type of bow that looks like a fanned out flower until I did some researching, and now with great pride, I announce that I will be doing a short tutorial on how to make a ..... (drum roll, please..) ASTERISK BOW (dum, dum, dum). Yeah, bright thoughts, right? Anyway, if you have left over wrapping paper like I often do with my horrible wrapping escapades, and hate to waste things- you will want to use that. Yes, yes, I know, you can thank me later, blowing minds, one step at a time!

So take some of that wrapping paper and you will want to cut a square out of it. You will want to fold it over in half (make sure it is the color you want facing up..(ex..blue for me)

Next, you will want to start cutting strips on the folded edge.  Cut close to the edge, but not close enough that it will precariously lean towards ripping!

Now,  this is kind of the difficult part to explain: you will want to start spreading/fanning out the "flower", take the unfolded edge and form a sort of circle, accordion folding or bunching together as you go to form the flower part. Keep your thumb and fingers in the middle to sort of pinch together and hold the center.

Here, you see what is known as the "asterisk". You are pretty much done here, but will want to staple or tape the middle. Do a few more of these steps  over and you can make  a couple of nice asterisks and layer like so! 

Because I was out of staples, I just colored the tape part with some metallic marker I had. (As you can tell I have obvious evidence of children by random hazardous toys laying on the floor waiting to be stepped on and maim the innocent bystander.)

You get the point! Now start cutting!