Mickey/ Minnie Party Part 1- Bow Ties

I mentioned before that birthday season is approaching. Please bear with me; I get pretty excited about it, so you will probably be seeing a lot of posts about all my DIY projects. For the kids' party, they decided on a Mickey and Minnie Mouse theme and I just knew that I wanted to try to create a "Minnie's Bowtique" area. Since the party is for a boy and a girl, I needed to make sure to include something that the boys can wear as well. I threw around a few ideas with my son (capes, sunglasses, gloves, and bow ties were a few of the ideas we had), but we settled on bow ties. Really, he wanted capes, and what little boy wouldn't, but making those was a bigger task than I felt like I could take on right now. I told him that I would make a cape for him and bow ties for the party, and he was satisfied. So, bow ties it is!

Here is how I made them...
You will need:

• Fabric
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Needle and thread
• Thimble (optional)
• Elastic (I used 1/4")
• Measuring tape
• Glue gun and glue sticks
• Iron

I looked through my stash of fabric scraps and I found some that went perfectly with the color scheme. I measured the fabric and cut it into 12x6 1/2 inch rectangles and 6x1 1/2 inch strips. You will need half as many strips as rectangles because you will be cutting them in half (if you want to make 8 bow ties, you will need 8 rectangular pieces and 4 strips).

I ironed each rectangular piece flat and then folded and iron it in thirds. Not in perfect thirds; each side just needs to go a little past the center.

 

 Repeat with the strips and then fold in half and cut so that you have two 3" long pieces instead of one 6" long piece.

 

I forgot to take a picture of the next part, but you fold each rectangular piece into thirds again with all raw edges facing the bottom to form the bow.

 

I had to play around with the pinch a little to get it right. 

Next, take your needle and thread and poke your needle through the center of the pinch. Just wrap the thread around the pinch a few times and poke the needle through again and tie it off. This sounds easy enough, but I actually thought it was the hardest part of the whole thing. Not because it is actually hard, but just because the fabric was so thick and you have to go through so many layers. I recommend using a thimble to help push the needle through.

 

I wasn't sure how long to cut my elastic, so I measured my son's neck and added 2 inches. I didn't want it to be too loose, but it needed to be big enough to fit over his head. I went ahead and cut all of my elastic strips and sewed the ends together to make a circle.

 

I hot glued the elastic at the seam onto the underside of my bow. 

Now, take your small strips and wrap them around the pinch and elastic. Hot glue the ends at the back of the bow. I folded my top piece under before gluing it to give it a more finished look.



 

And there you have it! Very easy and pretty cute.