Because I am often faced with the question, “Oh, how old is your son?” I have gone a bit off the deep end with making Sam hair bows. The problem was, where to store this collection? I had them in a drawer but they always ended up smooshed and were hard to find. That’s when I came up with the idea for a “bow board”, it’s basically like one of those ribbon corkboards but for displaying hairbows instead of pictures. The steps are easy & the best part is you can choose your fabric and make the board match your little one’s room perfectly.

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own:

Lg enough piece of fabric to cover the frame back piece (8×10 etc…, I used an old dress for fabric)
4 strips of a coordinating fabric that are wide and long enough to wrap around frame (1 strip for each side)
batting pieces large enough to cover frame insert
spool of ribbon(s)
glue gun

First take apart frame, discard the glass and any cardboard inserts. Taking the back piece of the frame lay it down on top of a piece of batting. Starting on one side wrap the batting around the board tautly and hot glue into place. Make a snip in the corners so you can lay them down smoothly. Continue repeating with other three corners and then do it again with the 2nd layer of batting. (I wanted mine to be nice and cushy but you can use less batting if you prefer) Also you can see I used up several scrap pieces of batting to cover mine. Be sure not to cover the hanger hook on the back, cut a little opening for it when you’re pulling the fabric & batting around to the back.

Now you’re going to do the same thing with the main fabric, make sure to pull tautly and then glue, repeating as you work down each side. For the corners make a snip so you can fold one side over the other.
For the ribbon I recommend laying out the pieces first until you get a pattern you like. I started off with 3 different kinds of ribbon but then took away 2 of the 3 for a simpler design. Once you get them the way you want pin in place & glue the ends of the ribbon to the back of the board tautly. Remove pins.
For the frame you’re going to use the same basic fabric covering techniques but with a few changes. First off there are two ways to cover a frame. If you have plenty of fabric or a smaller frame you can just lay out a big square and cut out the inside while leaving enough fabric to wrap around the frame. My frame is pretty large and I didn’t want to waste fabric so I did it the following way…

Cut out 4 strips of fabric that are long and wide enough to wrap around the frame sides.
Starting on one side begin by pulling the fabric around the inside edge of the frame, hot glue in place starting in the center and working your way out. This way you won’t have the fabric gather up on one side as you go along. When you get to the inside ends you can snip the fabric so it will lay down smoothly. Next do the same for the outside edge, pulling tautly before gluing and working your way from the inside out. On the ends just snip and wrap the fabric over the edge. You’ll want to cover the corner and then a little bit, when you come back on the other side you’ll even it out.
Continue with the other 3 sides. To finish the corners work as follows…

Snip fabric diagonally so that it looks like photo below, this is kind of hard to describe but you want to tuck the fabric along the diagonal under so it looks like a finished corner. Basically mess with it until it looks nice and tack it down in the back, trust me, it’s much easier to do than explain.

Last step is to Mod Podge the entire back of the frame. Hot glue works well for tacking things down but I don’t trust how long it will actually hold fabric. Be sure to get the inside edge too! Let dry for a few hours.Replace main insert and hang on wall, clip on bows or clips & ENJOY!
ps- Another good tip, you can see in the first picture that I installed 3 small dragonfly hooks underneath the frame, it’s the perfect way to hang your baby bloom headbands!

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