Bottle Tutus

A few nights ago, while I was feeding Bri her bedtime bottle, she became fascinated with my dangly earrings. She played with one of them gently for a little while, but I could see it was only a matter of time before it would be yanked painfully from my ear. So I slid it out of my ear and hooked it through one of the holes in the outer part of the drop-in bottle.

Then I had a brilliant idea. Wouldn’t it be neat if there was a toy that would attach to the bottle? Something kind of like this?

What is it, you ask? Why, it’s a bottle tutu! A perfect gift for a baby shower.

So I decided to make one. And then, I decided to make two. It was so easy! Let me show you how to make them, too.

Materials needed: One hair band, 30 pieces of ribbon cut into 8 inch strips, Bottle

Time: 20 minutes of cutting + 20 minutes of tying

I started with fifteen different styles of ribbon. Then I made two 8 in. strips from each style. My friends are all pregnant with baby boys, so I chose blue ribbon, and I can’t wait to give these away!

To start off, make two piles of ribbon. You want fifteen pieces in each pile. Then, you want to loop one piece of your ribbon in front of the rubber band, like so.

Then pull the bottom two pieces of ribbon through your loop.

Then pull it tight.

At this point, you’ll need to tie an extra knot so that the ribbon doesn’t slip off of the hair band. Since your goal is to make this interesting for the baby, you should use as many different kinds of knots as you’re comfortable making. Now, I didn’t make it past the Brownie stage of girl scouts, so I don’t know the formal names of these knots. But I have no problem making them up. (Navy families, feel free to educate me!)

I call this knot the loop-de-loop. First you make a loop that goes UNDER the ribbon. See?

Then, you stick your ribbon through the loop, like so.

Then pull your loop-de-loop really tight!

When you finish with your first pile of ribbon, your rubber band will look a little full. But this is what it looks like on the bottle. Not quite finished.

So, to keep on going, you need to stretch your hair band around a bottle. Then add your ribbon in the same manner as before, and keep tying knots. I tried to place the matching ribbon directly across from its partner. That way, the effect is very full and balanced.

Maybe one day, when your child is older, and there’s another little bottle sucker in your family, the older kid can play a ‘find the mate’ game, where she looks for the matching ribbon.

Here’s a picture of Bri testing out the first one I made. It didn’t have such a cute color scheme . We were going for that wild, picked-out-by-a-child look.

Here are the two finished products, side by side.

Now, I’m off to make a yellow one! I have some scrap book ribbon that says, “You are my sunshine!” How cute is that?