Scarlette loves Minnie Mouse. I think her obsession started when we threw a Minnie Mouse themed party last summer. She asked for a little Minnie Mouse camera for her birthday (look how cute her reaction was) and I randomly bring home Minnie or Mickey Mouse balloons from the grocery store because she just asks so sweetly for them. You’ll notice that she is also covered in Minnie Mouse bandaids. She’s a bit clumsy, that one. She gets it from her mama. Disney offered to send us the new book MINNIE IN PARIS and I thought that would be a fun summer surprise for her. And so inspired by the book, which is about Minnie Mouse taking her hairbows to Fashion Week in Paris, I decided to make Scarlette some Minnie Mouse hairbows to wear when she asks me to do her hair in Minnie Mouse Ears (photos of those at the bottom!) Only I recruited my friend Tracie to help me because as I learned when doing my tutorial on how to apply nail wraps, it’s really very difficult to photograph your own hands. And I didn’t want to end up holding the camera release in my teeth again, y’all. It’s a pretty quick and easy project, you’ll see in the video it takes less than 3 minutes!
How To Make A Minnie Mouse Hairbow 
You’ll need:
- 12 inch piece of 1 1/2 inch pink and white polka dot ribbon
- 7 inch piece of 3/8 inch coordinating ribbon
- 4 inch piece of 3/8 inch coordintating ribbon
- hair clips or barrettes
- needle and thread, hot glue gun and a lighter
Here is what you’ll do: First, cut all of your ribbon to the lengths you need. Then using the lighter, carefully run the flame along the edges of the ribbon to heat seal them. This will keep them from fraying. Practice good fire safety, y’all. Next, make your wide ribbon into a loop, overlapping the edges on the inside a bit. Then using your needle and thread, push your needle through the middle of the backside of the ribbon to the front. 
Now you’re going to want to watch this video, because the trick to making a Minnie Mouse hairbow is to do a slight fan fold on the ribbon. Tracie is also going to show you how she wraps the thin ribbon around the clip so that no metal shows. Oh, and there are bloopers. Of course there are. Here is what the last steps should look like, after creating your fan folds, you’ll just loop your thread around the middle of the bow and tie it off on the back. Then you’ll create a knot in the center of your 4inch piece of ribbon and wrap it around the center of your bow and the back of the hairclip, glueing it down as you go. That’s all there is to it! 
To make the bow stand up like Minnie’s, I make a little ponytail and pull a bit of hair through to make a tiny pouf and then clip the hair through that. To make the Minnie Mouse Ears, I just make two pigtails on either side of the bow, fold the hair in half, fan it out and use a tiny rubberband to secure it. Then I wrap the remaining hair around the base and tuck it in the back of the rubberband. Scarlette asks me to make Minnie Mouse Ears often so we go out in public like this a lot. She also spends a lot of time making faces at herself in the mirror. 
The book is really cute, with a big focus on visiting all of the iconic places in Paris, from the Louvre to Tuilleries Gardens to the Eiffel tower, and it totally saved me the other day when I needed to distract my child from “makin some snow angels” on the floor of the doctor’s office waiting room. Also, apparently Minnie Mouse has nieces. Scarlette was like “Who are dese wittle Minnie Mouses?” and I was all “I don’t know! I guess Minnie and Mickey had babies? Is this a thing? Why do I not know this?” But then a few pages in I learned they were Minnie’s nieces and felt very behind on my knowledge of Minnie and Mickey Mouse because I do not remember this at all from my own childhood. You can learn more about Minnie In Paris here (it comes with a free e-version of the book too, to take along to places like doctor’s offices) and follow Disney Publishing on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram Disclosure: This is a sponsored post that I wrote in support of the release of the new book MINNIE IN PARIS. All opinions, text, photos and bloopers are my own 😉
