DIY 4th of July Pony Bow

We are getting ready for the 4th of July here! I have been making little things here and there for a party we will be having. I wanted to share this pony bow I made for my daughter!

First you will need to get all your material together. For this project I used:

• Thee different colored ribbon
• Wooden dowels (from any craft store)
• clothes pins
• pony tail band
• embroidery floss and needle
• small bow (optional)

First thing I did was to pick out the ribbons I wanted. I used red, white and blue polka dots.

You will need your wooden dowels and clothes pins now.

Take your first ribbon and pin it to the end of the dowel with your clothes pin. 

Now turn the dowel and wrap the ribbon around it. Do this until you get to the end of the dowel, and secure the ribbon with another pin.

Then cut the end of the ribbon, and do it again with the same color.

 I had two dowels wrapped in each color.

 Preheat your oven to 275. While it is heating, spray your ribbon and dowels with fabric starch (if you don't have any, you can skip this step. The starch helps keep the shape, but it will look fine without it). I put a piece of foil in my oven for the dowels to sit on. Once it gets to 275, place the dowels in the oven, and bake for 25 minutes. 

Take them out of the oven once they are done, and let them completely cool. It is very important that they are cool before you take the ribbon off the dowels. 

Once they have cooled off, you can take the pins off each end and push the ribbons off the dowels. Do not unwind them off, just gently push, or gently pull the dowel out. 

This is what you should have once you have taken them off the dowels.

Now take your floss and needle. Make sure you find the middle point of the ribbon, and poke your needle through. Repeat this with the rest of the ribbons, alternating colors. You should have them all stacked on top of each other.

Something like this. Keep your needle attached to the floss, you will need it to attach your pony band.

Now take your band, and stitch it on. I pushed my needle through all the ribbon, and wrapped it around the band, and repeated this until it was secure. Then you will need to tie it off, and cut the extra floss. (EDIT: I made this a second time, and instead of stitching the band onto the ribbons, I used a hot glue gun and glued it. Then I added the red ribbon that is in the center of the bow, and glued that over the band, overlapping the ribbon ends on the inside.)

This is what it should look like sewn onto the ribbon.

The last step is to take the ends of the ribbon, and cut them. Some will look like mine does above, from where it was pined to the dowel. Just cut and seal the ends of the ribbon with a lighter. run your lighter flame over the end of the ribbon quickly. This should prevent it from fraying. 

You are all done! Unless you want to add a bow to yours, You can sew or glue any bow on top of the ribbon to jazz it up a bit. Here is what ours looks like with the bow:

I sewed my bow on because I didn't want to heat the glue gun up, but you can easily glue it on too!!
You can make this in any color to match any outfits!! Fun and easy!

More 4th of July crafts to come soon!