Meg's Cheater Bow

I got an e-mail today from Marie asking what my secret was to tying a knot around a corner of a card. I thought about trying to answer her in an e-mail, but this really is more of a visual trick so I thought I would do a tutorial instead.

And before I start I want to thank Meg Shumaker (aka WAXYO on SCS) for sharing this wonderful tip with all Stampin' Up! demonstrators in the On Stage magazine last winter. As some of you already know, Meg is my stamping hero, not the least because of this little trick, which saved me hours of aggravation (without this technique I'm an absolutely horrible knot maker!)!

For this cheater technique you need two lengths of ribbon. One needs to be about 2 inches longer than the length of the area you want to wrap it around. the other can be shorter but long enough to form the knot ends when folded in half.

The first step is to take the longer cut of ribbon ad tie it into a simple loose knot. Try to make it as pretty as you can with both edges "curling" towards the knot. Do not tighten the knot!

Flip the knot over in your hand. the ends should now be curling downward, away from the smooth side of the knot which now faces upward. Insert the shorter length of ribbon into the loose knot until it passes all the way through. Make sure that the short length of ribbon curls in the same direction as the other ends (downward).

Now tighten the ends of the longer piece of ribbon and pull the shorter ribbon through so that the ends are equal.

Without applying any adhesive, fit the tied ribbon on your stamped image, finding the best place to add it to the card.

Remembering the corner that you want to tie the ribbon around, turn the stamped image over and apply SNAIL adhesive on both sides of the corner to about half-way down each length of the reverse side of the stamped image.

Wrap ends of the longer piece of ribbon around the edge of the image and press down so that the ribbon is adhered to the image with the SNAIL you applied earlier.

Add more SNAIL right over the ribbon and down each edge of the stamped image.

Turn the image over and adhere it to the card base.

Trim the faux knot ends with snips until they are both the desired length. You are left with a nice smooth knot and ribbon that lays perfectly across your card front.

I hope this technique helps some of you with your card making as much as it helped me. Thanks Meg for sharing this awesome tip!