Getting Crafty

A couple months ago, I was shopping around for some headbands for Ava and realized how ridiculously expensive they can be. So I decided to get crafty and make some homemade headbands/clips.

First, I found some really cute felt and fabric flowers as well as colored elastic at Michaels. And after seeing what they were charging for a pack of ribbon-covered clips, I decided to make those as well. You can get a HUGE pack of plain silver clips on Amazon.com for about $5 (I told Josh I was saving him money this way...I don't think he bought it), and cover them easily using ribbon and a hot glue gun.

I followed the instructions on this site; however, you don't have to use spare clips for drying purposes when using hot glue. 

After we watched a few episodes of "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding," my sister Charlotte referred to this clip as Ava's "traveler baby" headpiece :). 

You can use these clips by themselves (if your baby has enough hair) or clip them onto plain headbands. I also glued some of the flowers directly on headbands. I used this site to figure out how long to make the elastic, hot glued on the flowers, and then hot glued the ends together. 

The only thing I would do differently next time is to place the seam under the flowers so it is completely hidden (but I don't think it matters that much).

I was really happy with the finished products. I also think that Ava makes for a really cute model...but I am a little biased. 

My next project is to make the fabric/felt flowers instead of buying them at Michaels. There are lots of great how-to sites out there, including the one listed above as well as this one and this one.