Summertime has come to an end, and now it’s time to start heading back to school and getting our minds back from vacation. Back to school time also signals the time to start thinking about the holiday season, which starts with Halloween! Halloween is one of our favorite holidays because we can go crazy with our crafting projects and ideas as we contemplate costumes, parties, and decorations. This tutorial will show you how to make three Halloween hair clips – all of which can be customized to match your outfit, fit your budget and/or supplies, or to perhaps have the general format idea used for other holiday hair accessories as well! Grouped images of some of the other hair accessory brainstorming session results are available at the end of this post to give you more ideas of how you might combine different elements to create your own headbands or hair clips for girls of any age!
A note on Clip vs. Headband before we begin:
I purposefully chose to make these three hair accessories with clips instead of affixing them directly to headbands as I am a big fan of having interchangeable accessories. With clips, you can wear them directly on your hair, attach them to a headband or hat, or even clip them to a present or goody bag as a fun embellishment.
However, if you know you are a headband kind of girl and you’d prefer to go directly to the headband, then by all means go for it! The instructions are basically the same except you’re attaching a headband in the place of the clip. For stability and to help it feel a little better, especially on tiny noggins with not much hair for padding, it is recommended that after attaching the headband you glue a felt circle or ribbon patch over the headband (under the flowers/bow) to help stabilize everything, give it a clean look, and also make a smooth contact surface.
Let’s start with the Halloween Witch Hat Hair Clip:
You’ll need the following supplies to make this hair clip:
- Sheet of Black Felt (mine is a 5”x8” scrap leftover from a previous project)
- 1 Black Sequin Flower Clip (already has an attached alligator clip – score!), or any flower that is basically flat and is as round as you’d like the brim of the hat to be
- 1 Lime Green Vintage Tulle Flower
- Lime Green 3/8” Grosgrain Ribbon (approximately 6-8”) for the hat band (I recommend making the cone, then measuring out the ribbon you’ll need to go around)
- Purple 3/8” Grosgrain Ribbon (approximately 12”) for the accent bow (sampling of alternative bow colors and sizes shown)
- Hot Glue Gun (and glue sticks, of course!)
- Scissors
- A comb or fork (small bow as pictured above is made with a fork, larger bows shown are made with the comb)
- White crayon (used to mark the felt)
Optional:
- Lime Green Grosgrain Hard Headband (ideal for attaching the hat to as it sits at a perfectly jaunty angle!)
- Velvet or Satin Elastic Headband (if you prefer a headband over a clip)
- French Clip (to switch out the alligator clip on the sequin flower if you prefer French Clips)
This is Lourdes, my Cabbage Patch Doll from when I was a little girl. She was kind enough to model for me.
*Note: You’ll see in a few of the pictures that I used the polka dotted ribbon for the hat band, but the final products both have lime green. Our lovely cat decided the version with the purple polka dotted band looked like one of his mouse toys and grabbed it before I completed the project. So, I ended up whipping up another hat and decided to just use the solid lime green instead. No wrong choices here! Go with what you’ve got!
How to make a Witch Hat Hair Clip:
1. I prefer to work with a little extra fabric when crafting (I always run short when going for “spot on” measurements!), so for this hat I marked my felt at 3” then 6” across the bottom and about 3” up from the center mark. Using these markings as guidelines, draw out and cut your half circle.
2. Now form a cone from the half circle, slightly more than 2 fingers wide. Use the sequined portion of the flower clip as a guide – that’s about the circumference you’re going for. Once the cone is shaped, add a line of hot glue where the end meets the side, press the side down on to the glue to close the cone, then trim off the excess felt. Ta-da! You’ve got a black felt cone!
3. Using the lime green 3/8” ribbon and dots of hot glue, add the band to your cone (hat). Don’t forget to start just to the left of the hat’s seam (if going around in the same direction shown) and overlap slightly with the end so you can glue and trim the end of the ribbon in line with the cone’s seam, keeping things nice and tidy. Set aside for a moment, but keep it out of the sights of any cats that might have mischief on their minds!
4. After removing the two pearls and rhinestone from the lime green Vintage Tulle Flower (I’m all about preserving reusable bits for later projects!), hot glue this flower right over the sequin center of the black flower clip. (Yes, I could have saved the sequins, but they seemed content to hang out where they were.) Press to ensure the flowers are adhered securely to one another.
Add a ring of glue around the base of your cone and secure this over the center of the lime green tulle flower. Keep in mind the orientation of the cone’s seam and the alligator clip. Make sure the seam will be on the back side of the hair clip when worn. Alternatively, you can have the seam facing the open end of the clip, which allows the clip to be attached from either direction, and the seam will stay toward the inside.
5. Now for the tiny bow! I prefer using this “fork method” when making mini bows because mine always turn out lopsided if I try my “other” way. There are many tutorials available for making bows this way, but hopefully the images below will be easy enough to follow. Use whatever method works best for you!
I used a fork for the purple bow in the title picture, which results in a bow about 1" across. But, I figured using my comb would make it easier for you to see what's happening in the pictures. The bow using the comb as instructed here ends up being about 1.25" across. The farther apart the teeth are, the wider the bow will be.
a.Measure out and cut about 12 inches of 3/8” ribbon. As I mentioned before, I always use a bit more than I know I’ll need.
b.Wrap the ribbon around the one of the comb’s teeth, with the back side extending farther than the front side.
c.Counting off an even number of teeth to the right, and holding the front side in place, bring the back side piece of the ribbon forward to the front. This will be how wide your resulting bow will be.
d.Loop the back side piece down over the front side piece and through the space between the middle teeth and pull it through to the back again. Remember to hold on to that front piece – the loop will want to slide up the teeth.
e.Keeping everything taut, bring the back side piece straight up and over the loop, through the same gap you went through on the bottom, and pull down to tighten. You’ve just made the center loop of the bow, so keep this tight!
f.Tie the two ends together in a knot. You don’t need to double knot it or even glue it. This knot will stay together, though be sure you pull tightly. This is the back of your bow, and now the ends of the ribbon are the bow’s tails.
g.Turn the comb over – see your beautiful miniature bow? Slide the bow off the teeth. You may need to make slight adjustments by tugging or twisting slightly here and there to get it to sit how you want. Trim the tails down. I prefer cutting them at an angle with the shorter side in the middle. If desired, run the cut ends of the tails quickly through the end of a flame and press to “seal” the edges.
6. Finally, glue your bow on to the hat, keeping in mind where you’ll want the bow to face when it is clipped to your hair or a headband.
Next up is the Queen of Hearts Sequin Hair Clip:
You’ll need the following supplies to make this hair clip:
- 1 Silver Sequin Ballerina Flower
- 1 Black Folded Petal Fabric Flower
- 1 Red Felt Heart, approximately ½”
- Black 3/8” Grosgrain Ribbon, approximately 8-10”
- 1 White Felt Crafting Circle
- 1 Black Lined Alligator Clip
- Hot Glue Gun (and glue sticks, of course)
- Scissors
Sorry, Lourdes is a huge Alice fan and just couldn’t bring herself to model “the enemy’s hair accessory”.
How to make a Queen of Hearts Sequin Hair Clip:
1. First attach the alligator clip to the felt circle with hot glue. When attaching alligator clips to other items with glue, take the precaution of clipping the clip to some wax or parchment paper to ensure it doesn’t accidentally get glued closed with any glue that might seep over the edge. The paper can then easily be removed once the glue has dried.
2. Simply continue the layering from there by gluing the Black Folded Petal Flower to the felt circle, the silver Sequin Ballerina Flower on top of that, and then the red felt heart on top of that.
3. Using the fork method described in the Witch Hat Hair Clip tutorial above, make a small black bow. Depending on your preference, attach the bow either to the top corner of the heart, or in the center. Easy peasy! That’s all there is to it!
And last, but not least: the Halloween Looped Flower Headband:
You’ll need the following supplies to make this hair clip:
- Black 3/8” Grosgrain Ribbon, 12 strips measuring about 5.5” each
- Purple 3/8” Grosgrain Ribbon, 12 strips measuring about 5” each
- Lime Green 3/8” Grosgrain Ribbon, 12 strips measuring about 4” each
- 1 Black Felt Circle measuring about 2” in diameter; alternatively, you could use the White Felt Crafting Circle
- 1 Black Vintage Tulle Flower
- 1 Black Velvet Headband or Black Lined French Clip (not shown above)
- Black Tulle, approximately 24”
- Hot Glue Gun (and glue sticks, obviously)
- Scissors
Lourdes liked this headband – she’s in the “Bigger is Better” camp when it comes to hair accessories.
How to make a Halloween Looped Flower Headband:
1. For those whose special talent is paying close attention to detail, you may have noticed in the supplies list picture above that there are only 10 lime green looped ribbons laid out, though 12 are needed for this flower. Kudos to you for noticing!
For the rest of you, cut out your strips of ribbon per the supplies list above, and create your flower petal loops. This is accomplished by holding the ribbon by the ends in front of you, wide side parallel to the table. Then, bring the two ends together without twisting them. The side of the ribbon that was on the top when you were holding it in front of you will still be the side facing up once you bring the ends together. Add a dab of hot glue to the end piece on the bottom (I chose the left side), and secure the other end on top, again, without twisting. Try to align the sides as much as possible while the glue dries/cools. For a uniform look to the flower, be sure you keep the same side of the ribbon on the bottom for all petal pieces.
2. Once you have crafted all of the flower petals (12 of each color), begin assembling the bottom layer of petals on the felt circle. Add hot glue to the felt circle – I chose the advanced level “swirl” technique. One by one, place the black petals (or whichever color used the longest ribbon lengths) on the hot glue. Ensure they are placed tightly together. While there can be some slight overlap, you do not want too much overlap or too much gap. All 12 petals will need to fit around the circle. As you get toward the end of the 12 petals, you will need to overlap the ends. Add more glue as needed as you work your way around the circle. Repeat for purple and then lime, layering each color on top of the last. Try to arrange the petals of the new layer such that they sit where the two petals below meet, creating a slightly offset look.
3. Once all of the petal layers are assembled, add a dot of glue in the center and affix the black Vintage Tulle Flower. Flip the flower over and glue the French clip to the felt center. Because this is a larger hair piece, a French clip is recommended over an alligator clip to give it more stability.
You have now completed the Halloween Looped Flower Hair Clip. Except... didn't the title of this one say "Headband", and didn't the picture at the beginning of this post show a headband on this flower? Again, if you're in the "pays close attention to detail" group, you win yourself another Kudo!
As tends to happen when you’re multitasking while crafting, I skipped a step and failed to attach that lovely layer of tulle you see in the final product at the top of the post BEFORE adding the French Clip or the petals. And, I also forgot that while I had originally planned to make this a hair clip, I had decided later in the process it should be a headband so there would be at least one headband represented in this post. Not wanting to shortchange this tutorial by eliminating additional elements that can be utilized when crafting headbands, I thought of a way to add the tulle and the headband without having to detach any of the already glued on pieces. They say necessity breeds innovation, right? Keep in mind, though, that this is an OPTIONAL step and the flower clip is perfectly adorable without adding the tulle.
To add the optional tulle lining to the bottom of the flower, and also convert it to a Headband:
1.Fold the strip of tulle in half lengthwise so you have one long, narrow strip. Working along the folded edge, weave a needle and thread across the length of tulle, gathering it as you go. The thread should be knotted on the tail end. The stitching does not need to be precise by any means, though you don’t want to leave too much gap between stitches or it will not gather as tightly. (Disregard the scissors in these photos – they are actually on the table, not cutting the thread! That comes in the next step.)
2.Once you’ve worked the thread through the length of the tulle, cinch the tulle all the way down the thread until it is gathered at the knotted end. Tie off the two ends of the thread to close the loop you’ve just made, being sure to leave a slight hole in the center. (It’s like a mini tutu!)
3.Open the French clip, loop the Velvet headband around the arm of the clip, then secure the clip closed, with the headband positioned in the center of the clip. Bring the other end of the headband through the hole in your mini tulle tutu and slide the tulle all the way down to the French Clip.
And NOW you have come to the conclusion of this tutorial, and the third, final tutorial of this post.
As promised, here are some of the other Hair Accessory Brainstorming Creations for your browsing pleasure:
Products Used In These Hair Accessories: Ballerina Sequin Flowers Frayed Flower with Rhinestone Center Halloween Shabby Flowers Peonies Nylon Headbands Pearl Shabby Flower Clip Chiffon Heart Chiffon Flower Headband VP Chevron Bow Crepe Crafting Bow |
Have fun with these crafts, follow them to a “T” or tweak them with your own flair!
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Happy Crafting!
Photos taken by Madi W.