Let's make a beautiful bow with paper!
Step 1: Get a square piece of paper.
Step 2: Fold paper horizontally with back side facing outwards.
Step 3: Open paper and fold the paper horizontally the other way.
Step 4: Open paper and fold on the diagonal with print side facing outwards. Do this for both diagonals.
Step 5: Now open your paper. Your pre-folding is all done and it should look like this!
Step 6: Squish the edges of the diagonal corners together and the paper should just fall into place like this.
Step 7: Fold the top corner down by about 1/2 an inch or so (I guess its arbitrary depending on the size of your paper). This will determine the proportion of the middle of your bow, so judge it that way.
Step 8: Open your paper back up. Now you have this nice little square in the middle.
Step 9: Crease the edges of the square all upwards and then squeeze the edges of the little square inwards at the horizontal folds until it collapses. See next picture for a visual explanation.
Step 10: Flatten your square.
Step 11: Fold the top edges of your square towards the middle like so.
Step 12: Fold the top edges down for both sides. Then grab the bottom corner and pull upwards.
Step 12: Flatten out your paper and make your little square nice and crisp.
Step 13: Cut along the edge of the upper squares towards the middle. Here are where the cuts are going to be.
Step 14: If you're like me and you're fully incapable of cutting a piece of paper while it's folded you can do what I do and just undo the whole thing, cut to the tips of the little square and then re-fold the paper. I think it's kind of a personal preference, though.
Step 15: Fold the top flap down. Here's what it will look like.
Step 16: Fold the edges of the "bow" part like so. In this step it is very important that your edges line up properly and your folds are nice and neat. The line where the edges of the paper meet is actually visible in the final bow form.
Step 17: Cut the bottom square up to the folded apex.
Step 18: Fold the edges of the top of the bottom square down like so. This will determine how wide your bow is, so it's also arbitrary. I like to do it about 1/2 inch.
Step 19: Fold the inside edges (where you cut) of the bottom square upwards. I like to make the upper edge parallel with the edge of the piece i just folded.
Step 20: Tuck the corner of the pointy bow parts under the little square. The bow stays fine on its own, but if you're doing this as a gift or a card, I suggest putting a glue dot or a bit of glue under the little square just to keep it in place. Then, cut the bottom part to however you like your bow to look. Sometimes I only cut the little edge that's floating off to make a straight slanted line, but most of the time I cut where the orange lines are to form a "v" on the edge.
Your finished bow will look like this. More:
