Oh I love these bows so much! :D They are pretty pretty pretties! And I think, if I weren't such a disciplined person, I would make about three dozen of them--nine large ones for putting on parcels, fourteen medium sized ones for a garland across my sewing room window, twelve little ones for a set of cards, and one miniature one for my hair. Tehe. 

I learned to make these pretties from this post on Tweety Atelier. It's in Japanese. But the Photographs are clear, although you might not catch at first glance that steps nine and thirteen require the use of scissors. Yes, scissors. But just for a couple short incisions. This isn't kirigami here.

The instructional video below, for those of you who prefer that, happens to be in Spanish. (What? It was the best one. And I really scoured YouTube, I'm tellin ya.)

You'll want to use origami paper, if at all possible, or something of a similar weight. Tissue paper will work. But regular wrapping paper turns white at the crease points, so I wouldn't use that. Kraft parcel paper is much better. For the metallic bow in the below photograph, I used heavy scrapbook paper. That was a mistake. It resulted in the square ripping apart when I pulled the corners open in step eight. So lighter is better.

Speaking of the square, if you change how large you make the fold in step three (or at about two minutes in the YouTube video), you will also change the square size. I liked mine big, cause it makes the bows look cartoonish.

You may notice I have flattened most of my bows. This way, if put on the fronts of greeting cards, they will be much easier to slip into envelopes. =P I prefer to leave them poofy when sticking them onto doors, and walls, and gift bags. 

Reference the black and white photo for tail trimming suggestions.

And that's it. Have fun. =)

As you are probably aware, tags matter because they communicate to your Etsy customers what it is you have to offer. When someone searches Etsy using the phrase "cherry red knee-high elf stockings," and you have exactly such a pair for sale but you only used a single tag, that of "socks," to describe it, this customer will sadly not be able to find you listing. And it's a shame. Cause your stockings were just the thing she'd hoped to buy.          

Now I'm sure none of your tags warrant the double facepalm. Mine never did. However when I was first starting out on Etsy, I hadn't done enough research (dudes you've got to do more that read the Etsy guidelines, trust me), to know that I could steadily improve my traffic, and thus sales, by making a few key adjustments.