How to tie a ribbon bow onto a gift box

Here's how to wrap a gift with a satin bow. Rod Martinez uses a double-sided orange and green ribbon to demonstrate.

1. Decide where the bow will be on the package. Use that spot as a guideline for your ribbon and measure the length based on that spot.
2. Hold your thumb over the ribbon where the bow will be. Wrap the rest around the bottom of the package, all the way around until the ribbon meets again where your thumb is.
3. Loop the ribbon under itself where the bow will be. Keep holding the spot with your thumb. Continue wrapping the ribbon around the package, but this time, on the other side.
4. When the ribbon meets your thumb again, pull the two ends of the ribbon up to make sure they are the same length. Trim as necessary.
5. Now to secure it, bring the second part of the ribbon underneath the first ribbon that you started with and tie a simple knot, bringing it all together.
6. To make the bow: tie a single shoestring knot and pull the loops out. Cut the ends at a diagonal.

LISA:  Hi I’m Lisa Birnach for howdini.com. Ever wonder how your favorite shop gets the ribbon to your gift boxes to look so perfect? When I try it at home it seems I am the one getting tied in knots. Rob Martinez from Papyrus, the high-end stationary gift-wrap store is here to teach us how to tie a ribbon on a gift box. Okay.

ROD:  Albright Lisa so lets do this. We have a very nice satin ribbon here.  What were going to do is this one is double sided here, see the orange and the green.

LISA:  Right.

ROD:  I’m going to leave a little extra to begin with. I’m going to want to tie my bow here on the top left side so I’m going to leave a little extra ribbon to tie the bow with. Okay.

LISA:  Okay.

ROD:  Wrap this around, up and over. Make sure that it didn’t fold or anything while we did that.

LISA:  Well very neat.

ROD:  I’m keeping my thumb here, I’m going to bring it back underneath the box and back over. And again not need to make a tie over here. Nice and clean. Once you get to this spot here your going to measure so both your ends are the same length. And what I’m doing is holding it here now. We’re going to cut this. Doesn’t really matter at first how you cut it because we’re going to fix that a little later. So now that I’ve got this all prepared the trick is to go underneath the first ribbon you started with. The first side of the ribbon that you started with. Come underneath that end and come over. You see how that, and what that’s going to do, when I tie this simple knot its going to bring all the ends together.

LISA:  I see also that it will make less of a bump, because your kind of spreading the know on two sides.

ROD:  Exactly. Exactly. Yea, your using one-knot to do all four ends. Again this is all nice and clean and neat. Now I’m going to do the bow. Now with this I’m going to choose to do the green to do the bow.

LISA:  Right.

ROD:  If it is two sided you want to make sure you do your first look with the green. And now the trick here is to make your next loop, you go in with the green, going to go in towards the bottom, tie it back around. You doing a regular shoe string tight bow.

LISA:  Right.

ROD:  But with satin the beauty is with the ribbon. We just move the hands down, and what I like to do is then here with the ends I cut wing. And we’ll do this over here, make nice little tips.

LISA:  How lovely.

ROD:  And you have a great gift.

LISA:  And it doesn’t matter that you re-gifted something cause look how beautiful it is.

ROD:  Does not, exactly. It’s all about the presentation.

LISA:  Exactly, thank you Rod. Happy holidays to you.

ROD:  To you too.

LISA:  I’m Lisa Birnbach.