The Cheer Bow Saga

Yes...it is a Saga. My daughter shocked me last year when she asked to cheer at her school. I had thought she would want to play basketball but she really wanted to cheer. Well she LOVED it! So much so that I signed her up for competitive cheerleading after that. She had more of a love/hate with this but I think this was more because it was a LOT of hard work and she never had to work that hard for anything in her life up to that point. Coming off of a long competitive cheer season and looking at many different kind of cheer bows I knew that her school squad's bows could use an upgrade. They were cute, but they were pieces of ribbon tied to a ponytail holder. I was on a mission to get the girls cuter cheer bows this season until they told me their was no budget. Of course there isn't. I said to the coach, you know what, I will just make them. I can get the ribbon cheap. Ugh why? Why do I volunteer for these things! I used my daughter's cheer bow as a guide, her squad was the youngest so they have more of a pinwheel type bow. I struggled with this, I'm not going to lie. I was doubting my crafty skills but then I remembered that I had a mini Bowdabra! That saved me and I created this. The school colors are Silver, Blue, and White.


Then I found out I had to make 43, no 45, no 46. Yes the number kept growing. After I ordered all of the ribbon I found a pair of last year's bloomers. Look at the pic, you know what happened next. I had the wrong blue and opening day was in a week. AND I had no idea how to match up that color to the ribbons on line. Hence the ribbon adventure when we met Scoobs!



I FINALLY got the right ribbon but ran out of time before our trip to Colorado to finish them. The next week I was up until 3am making all 46 bows. It snowed that day and I was praying they would cancel so I could have more time. Not so much. I took this pic of the bow in my daughter's hair and realized I forgot to fray check the edges. Ugh this project is never ending!!!


The following week I had to add the fray check to all of the bows which I had to do between games and while they were in the cheerleader's hair! Then I sat at the game and fixed all of the ones that hadn't been passed out yet. This is the final fray checked cheer bow.



The bows look so cute in the girl's hair. Though next year, I am going for a much simpler design, the double layer took a lot of time. 46 doesn't seem like a lot until you start making them. I may also be adding some more ribbon hair bows into my Etsy shop. The possibilities with that Bowdabra are seriously endless! Haha.