Hairclip tutorial

My friend Kate asked me how to make hairclips for little girls so I figured it was time for a tutorial. I had 15 minutes before I was heading out, and these clips are so easy that was plenty of time to make two clips (or even more if you don't have a little one that wants to help you and jump on and off your lap).

First gather supplies:
hairclips
ribbon just wide enough to cover the clips
scissors
fabri-tac glue to glue the ribbon to the clip
silk flowers and buttons or whatever you want to use to decorate the clip
A needle and thread if you are using buttons
a hot glue gun to attach the flower if you are not using buttons
I think these clips are actually for holding roller in your hair. My friend Reba bought a bunch of these clips at Sally Beauty Supply, I bought this pack at Target, but I don't think they will work as well because they close together at an angle so I think they will slip out of hair unless you add a strip of craft foam in the middle to keep them from slipping out of soft baby-fine hair. If your using Grosgrain ribbon or some other ribbon with a lot of texture I think they will probably stay in hair well, but if you're using satin ribbon or something else slick, you probably need to add craft foam to the middle anyway.

First, glue the end of the ribbon to the inside of the top of the clip.

Next, if you're using a silk flower to decorate the clip, pull it off of the stem. It should look like this.

They are not usually glued together so just pull the base of the flower off and then slip the plastic middle out. (sometimes I leave the middle, but in this case it was cover with fluffy yellow stuff that didn't seem suitable for a baby's hairclip so I'm putting button in the middle instead).

Fold the ribbon around the clip and mark where you want the flower to go. Then sew the flower to the ribbon with the button on top of the flower.

Trim the thread and glue the ribbon across the top of the clip.

Fold the ribbon the rest of the way around the clip and trim it where it will meet the center of the clip.

Then glue the ribbon the rest of the way around the clip. I clip it on a piece of paper while I put glue on the back of the clip so I don't get glue on the ribbon on the top of the clip.

Here's the final view from the back.

The view of the middle

And from the front along with another clip that I made.

If you aren't using a button to secure the clip, you begin the same way. Pull the flower off of the stem.

Pull off the base of the flower then cut off the part of the center that sticks through the back (you want the flower to be as flat to the clip as possible so it won't be torn off).

Pull each piece of the flower apart and then glue each piece back together. I used fabric-tac, but this is where hot glue would come in handy because it dries a lot faster. You don't want to use hot glue to glue the ribbon to the clip unless you work quickly because you want the ribbon to lay very smooth on the clip.

Then glue the flower to the clip.

And there you have it.

Have fun making your own!