Monday, November 17, 2025

DIY Outside Inside Door Swag

Have you seen the latest fad in decorating your front door for Christmas? It's an outside inside door swag! An adorable double sided door swag that provides a festive look for both the outside and inside of a home!

Imagine two identical bow swags joined by a length of gorgeous ribbon that drapes beautifully over the top of your door! One side that greets your guest while the other side says goodbye! A balanced swag bow design that looks identical from both the front and back of the door ensuring a uniform, decorative bow arrangement for anyone entering or leaving the home. Sounds cool doesn't it?

Materials:

5" wide velvet wired ribbon - 50yd roll
White pine sprays, berry & pinecone picks, gold frosted berries picks, berry & pinecone sprays
Hot glue gun/glue sticks
Bowdabra/wand
Bowdabra bow wire

This project was originally published on the Bowdabra.com site, where I am on the Design Team!

How To:

Begin by cutting a 72" length of velvet wire ribbon. Fold the ribbon evenly and loosely lay the ribbon on worksurface.

Glue on the white pine sprays 6 inches from bottom of ribbon on both ends.

Then begin gluing on picks - first, gold frosted berries & pinecone picks . . .

then red berries picks . . .

one on each side.

Make sure the arrangements look the same on each ribbon tail.

Time to make the Bowdabra Bows!

Cut an 18″ piece of Bowdabra wire, fold together and place in the Bowdabra, tucking the ends under. Then cut a 28" piece of 5" wide ribbon, creasing the center and placing it down into the Bowdabra for the bow tails

Next, leave the ribbon on the roll and crease about an inch from the end of the ribbon and insert down into the Bowdabra.

Since the velvet is on one side of this ribbon, fold a 7” loop, creasing, and twisting the center of ribbon down into the Bowdabra.

Fold and twist ribbon to make a matching loop on the opposite side, down into the Bowdabra. Hold loops up along the Bowdabra tower to make sure the loops are equal in size.

Then make one additional 7” loop on either side for a total of four loops.

Use the Bowdabra Wand to scrunch all the loops down.

To finish the bow, make a button loop to cover the bow wire, cutting off excess ribbon.

While the bow is still in the Bowdabra, thread the loose ends of the bow wire through the loop and pull tight while gently pulling the bow out.

Take the bow wire around to the back, tying the wire in two or three tight knots - cutting off excess bow wire.

Dovetail the ends of the ribbon by folding the ribbon together and cutting at an angle from the corner tip up to the fold.

Add hot glue to the center back of the bows and . . .

attach the bows at the bottom of the picks. An after design thought to the ribbon ends was to add white pine sprays to cover the ribbon in between the bow tails.