Before we get into the post I want to take a moment to acknowledge the 9th Anniversary of 9/11.  Whether you were affected personally, or were just shocked by the images of that day, every American and many others around the World can remember the horror.  Keep all of the families of those lost in your hearts throughout today and every day, as well as those in the military fighting overseas for OUR freedom.  Thank them for their strength in protecting us.  In fact, take a moment to visit the Let’s Say Thanks site and let them our soldiers know how much they are loved.
 
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If you haven’t noticed already, we have a new sponsor here at seven thirty three.  I am excited to introduce you to The Ribbon Retreat!
 
The Ribbon Retreat is an online mecca for ribbons, fabric and more!  Seriously!  Their ribbon options are incredible.  It is so hard to look through their site and notwat to buy everything you see.  They carry gosgrain (shiff OR offray, 3″ solid, 1/8″… see, tons!), satin, dotted and striped ribbons, really the list just goes on and on.  They even offer these easy ribbon mixes with color coordinating ribbons, no more worrying about mixing and matching because they’ve done the work for you.
 
The Ribbon Retreat sent me their really neat TOTT (Tricks of the Trade) Hair Bow Maker and Instructions with several packages of ribbon to test.  I was so excited when I received my package and all those amazing ribbons!  I have two girls and bows are such a cute hair accessory.  So I sat down with my new ribbon maker and gave it a go and this was my result:

 
Not bad for my first ever bow, except I took the picture BEFORE I sealed the edges.  I used ribbon from my Gumball Blast Mix that was included with the TOTT.  A couple of things – the instructional disc that came with the package was a CD, not a DVD.  Unfortunately it wasn’t labeled as such so I put it into our Blueray to no avail.  Once I figured that out, I popped it into my computer without issue. 

I opened up the amazing 200+ page instruction manual and found an easy to follow, step by step, photo tutorial.  The disc also contains hands-on video tutorials.  I was impressed with these tools because they really help you succeed!
 
Onto the bow making – at first I got a bit frustrated because my dowel on the right kept wanting to lean in to the center, so I had to take a minute to really get it stuck into the hole and then I realized if I relaxed my grip on the ribbon things worked better for me.  If my first bow can turn out so cute I know the more I work at it the better I’ll be!
 
Oh and the tutorial also shows how to make bows by hand, but I must say I think the TOTT Hair Bow Maker really gives you the extra help you need.  It is so simple and you get a near perfect bow each time.
 
OK, gotta go!  Have more bows to make… thinking I’ll make a bow for my daughters school pictures!
 
But first, here’s my youngest wearing her new bow:
 I think she like’s it.
DISCLAIMER: I received free product as an opportunity to try them out to see if I would like to recommend them to my readers. Obviously I liked them and have passed the addiction onto you!