Making a Patriotic Stars and Stripes USA Hair Bow – FREE Cut Files for Cricut Maker

 

These bright, sparkly and patriotic bows are attention grabbing – and all you’ll need is three sheets of glitter fabric, glue and a clip!

You Will Need:

• 1 sheet of letter (or A4) size glitter hair bow fabric in red
• 1 sheet of letter (or A4) size glitter hair bow fabric in white
• 1 sheet of letter (or A4) size glitter hair bow fabric in blue
• Bow clip
• Glue (I used a hot glue gun)
• Our SVG File which you can get by filling in the form below:
• A Cricut Maker with rotary blade (or similar machine/blade!)

Preparing the Files:

1. Open a New Project and click on ‘Import Images’.
2. Choose the file you’ve downloaded – in this case it’s ‘usabow.svg’ (or whatever format you use with your machine)
3. Click on ‘Ungroup’. You should see the following shapes on your Design Space canvas:
4. Click on ‘Ungroup’. You can now move the pieces around, and delete the ones you don’t want to use. To make one full bow you will need to cut:

•  the white base pieces (i.e. the piece that looks a bit like a bra, and the bit that looks a bit like two merged mermaid tails!)
• pieces to cover the two white pieces you’re cutting – which ones you use depends on the bow you want to make – e.g. you can do a striped base (i.e. mermaid tails!) and starred bow (bra shape!), in which case once you’ve deleted the pieces you don’t need, you’ll have this on your canvas:

or vice versa (i.e. stars on the base and stripes on the top bow piece)…OR you can do half and half…gluing a starred half next to a striped half on both pieces – in that case you’ll leave these pieces on the canvas:

• the long rectangle for the middle of the bow (please note, you can change this to any colour you wish, simply click on the piece and, where it appears highlighted in the right hand margin, click on the coloured circle. You’ll then be able to choose the colour you want from the Layers Attribute that pops up)

5. Once you’ve done this, drag your mouse over the red striped piece(s) and click on ‘Attach’, as you want the stripes to be cut in the arrangement they are on the canvas.

Now…you’re ready to cut everything out! Click on ‘Make It’!

Cutting out the Pieces:

Please note – for my example, I’m showing how to put together the ‘half and half version’ as it’s slightly more complicated (though still EASY!) to put together, and shows all the technique you need to make any of the versions.

When you are cutting materials on the Cricut Maker, I find that you have to choose your settings based on how ornate your pattern is, and how thick your fabric is. In the case of glittery bow material and ornate shapes, after a LOT of experimentation, I have found that the best option is the ‘Heavy Fabrics (Like Denim).’ This prompts you to use the rotary blade.

1. I find that Design Space can be quite unpredictable in its choice of what it cuts first but in this case…the white pieces came up first.
2. The red pieces were next – you can see they are in the correct shape – if you find there are just random stripes on this mat, then please go back to step 5 in ‘Preparing the Files’ as you need to attach the pieces.
3. The blue pieces are straightforward!

 

Assembling the Bow:

1. First, we’re putting together the top, curvier part of the bow, using the following pieces:
2. Apply glue to the back of the blue starry piece and join it to match the edges on one side of the larger white piece.
3. Do the same with the stripes on the other side of the white piece, going a stripe at a time and matching up the curves on the edges. (If you need guidance at any point, use the area on the vinyl you cut the piece out from as a guide – it will be almost a ‘stencil’ for where to lay the stripes out. The result will look like this:
4. Now, turn this piece over and liberally apply glue to the centre of the piece. Fold over one of the sides to the middle of the piece as shown:
5. And then glue on top of that and fold over the other side:
6. Repeat the above process using the other base piece and its matching sections (take great care with the very narrow top and bottom red stripes, as they are rather small!), and you’ll have the following:
7. Apply a generous blob of glue to the centre of the piece you just made, and, matching up the middles, put the bow part on top. For my bow, I’ve chosen to position it so that the stars on top contrast with the stripes on the base (and vice versa), but of course you can have it all stars on the left and all stripes on the right if you prefer!
8. Now, apply glue to the back of the long rectangle. (As mentioned in step 4 in ‘Preparing the Files’ this can be whatever colour you choose – I chose blue for this particular bow). Put the rectangle, matching the centres, wrong (i.e. glued) side down on the middle of the bow:
9. Turn over and apply glue to the back. Fold the ends of the rectangle over to secure the bow – as you can see I’ve put loads on, but it needs it to keep the clip in place:
10. Add the clip:That’s it! You’ve made a lovely bow! Here’s one of the other versions alongside it so you can compare them:

Want to make the bow yourself? Get your FREE cut files by filling in the form below:

Made this bow? Don’t forget to let us know how you get on making this or our other projects in the CraftAGoGo Crucial Crafting Facebook group!