Erica is making headbands!! (pt.1)

Headbands are cute, trendy and surprisingly easy to make. I had most of the materials already at home so that makes them a very cost effective craft, too. I'm doing a few so no back story tonight. Just crafts!!

Tutorial #1. Cloth flower headband

I'm making these for Elizabeth and Rachel (for our department Valentine's Day)
      my former craft night pal (she has a birthday coming up)
           and for my friend, Emma (for a one year wedding anniversary care package). Wes and I went to Sydney last year for my cousin Kent and his wife, Emma's, wedding. They were the absolute best hosts--showed us all that Sydney had to offer-- so we decided to send them an Oklahoma care package for their one year anniversary in May.

Materials needed:

Cloth- mine is an old romper-, elastic (not necessary to arrange into an 'E.' Haha!), ruler, scissors, hot glue gun, tacks and a sewing machine- unless you want to sew by hand, which is totally okay.

1) Cut the elastic into a 7 inch piece. Cut the cloth into a strip 15 inches long and 2 inches wide. Bigger or smaller depending on the size of the head you're making this for.

2) Fold the cloth in half length wise and sew together.
          Tip: I hate ironing with every fiber of my being so I would not tell you to do this unless its absolutely necessary... my cloth was really wrinkly so I ironed it before I started sewing. It made everything much neater and easier to measure & sew straight lines.
3) Sew the ends of the cloth to the ends of the elastic. Now you have a headband!

4) That's super cute and you could leave it as is... but I think I'll add cloth flowers to mine.
     a. cut 4 small squares of cloth;
     b. pinch the cloth from the center and scrunch up each piece into what you imagine would look like a petal;
     c. one at a time, hot glue the petal shaped pieces together.  Glue the pieces together at the base (where my finger is pinching). I used the glue to help arrange my petals into a flower formation after all four of the base pieces were glued together;
     d. take your push pin and pin in the center; I put a dab of hot glue on the pointy end of the pin after I pushed it through the flower (so no one gets poked in the head!).

5) Hot glue your flower(s) to the headband.

Tutorial #2. Braids and ribbon/lace headband

 

I'm keeping this one for myself. I love the look of braids and I want to learn how to braid my hair a thousand different ways. This cloth is from a romper I got in Hong Kong. I bought it before they became popular, I swear! LOL Sadly, it never really fit me right so I cut off the top half to use for crafting (for this one and the headbands above). I still wear the bottom half as pants.

Materials needed - cloth, lace or ribbon, elastic, scissors, hot glue gun and ruler

1) Cut your elastic to about 9 inches (more or less, of course, depending on your size of head).
2) Cut your ribbon to about 12 inches. I get headaches easily so I don't like my headbands too tight. Also, the ribbon doesn't stretch so you have to make it longer than your elastic so it'll stretch along with it. I'm using two pieces of ribbon for this. You can use as much or little as you'd like.
3) Now for the fun part... braiding! I'm going to try to teach you how to braid, if you don't already know how. I was never really taught to braid (I think I just played with my hair long enough until I figured it out. LOL) so I'm not sure how well this will go...
     a. cut your cloth into 3 slender and even 14 inch strips. It seems like a lot but things shrink when they're braided. I didn't measure mine perfectly but they were mostly the same length and width.

     b. firmly place the ends of cloth on the edge of a surface. I would have loved to have another human holding it for me but my craft night buddy now resides in Texas : ( I had to settle for tape and a paperweight.
     c. cross piece A over piece B
         now piece A should be next to piece C
         cross piece C over piece A
         now B should be your first piece, C should be your second and A should be your third piece.
     d. continue to cross your first piece over the second piece and then the third piece also over the second piece. Try to keep your pieces of cloth from twisting and braid them as tightly as you can. I made a total of three braids.

4) When I finished each braid, I didn't tie or tape any of the ends. I just untaped them from my surface and left them loose until I was done with all three of them.  They shouldn't fall apart. I then braided the three single braids together into a large thick braid. I hot glued the ends of the large thick braid together.

5) Hot glue your large thick braid to the elastic. Then hot glue a piece of ribbon on each side of it.

I have a couple of more ideas for headbands (and more material lying around) but I think I'll save those for next week. Its getting too close to my dinner time and I'm hungry!