Super quick bunny ear hairband - tutorial

With Easter around the corner, there are a stack of bunny eared hairbands in the stores, I know.  Most of the ones I've seen though are lolly-like hues of pink and blue, and that eye-piercing shade of bright baby-chicken yellow, which are all, incidentally, the colours I like least.



For the cost of a cheap hairband, a couple of chenille sticks, along with a favourite piece of fabric from your stash, and about ten minutes, you can easily make one that co-ordinates with your little one's favourite outfit.  Even if you don't have a sewing machine, you can make these easily and quite quickly.

I've left mine plain, but you could have fun decorating with sparkly bows or (my beloved) colourful pompoms at the base of one ear, or both.  This would also be a great Easter project for older children who are learning to sew.

What you need:

Thin cardboard (piece of cereal box or similar) for making a template
A thin headband (I like one with grippers - it helps stop the ears sliding about :) )
2 chenille sticks (mine were each 30cm long).  Preferably the same colour as the hairband.
A piece of fabric 20cm x 40cm (or two pieces of co-ordinating fabric 20cm  x 20cm). I've used a plain cotton to make mine.

What you do:

Print the template below on to a sheet of paper, then glue to thin cardboard.  When dry, cut around the outline.

Fold your piece of fabric in half width-ways, right sides together, so that the folded fabric measures 20cm square.  (If you are using two co-ordinating fabrics so the front and rear of the ears are different, place them right sides together).  Press lightly if needed, to get out any creases.

Place the ear template on the folded fabric (leaving enough room to draw a second ear) and draw around it with pencil.  Draw a second ear in the same way.

Machine or hand-sew around the two long sides of each ear, leaving the bottom open for turning.

Cut around stitching. leaving about a half centimetre all around.

 
 Turn inside out, using the end of a pencil to poke out the top point.  Also run it along the long sides of each ear so that the curves are nicely shaped.  (Note:  I found that clipping the curves along the edges and into the top was unnecessary for the fabric I was using).  Lightly press the ears and set aside while you prepare the hairband.

Bend over each end of each chenille stick, just so that prickly wire isn't a problem (ends of chenille sticks can sometimes be sharp!)

Fold each chenille stick in half as pictured.

Attach the chenille sticks into the position you want the ears to sit, using the picture below as a guide (I've used a yellow chenille stick here, so it looks clearer, but will be using black chenille sticks to make my ears.)  I think this knot thing I've used is called a cow hitch.

If you're using a hairband with grippers, before pulling them too tightly, make sure they are in the right position, because they can be difficult to move.

Tape or twist the ends of the stick together.

Take your fabric ears and slide them over the sticks.

Turn in the bottom of each ear about a half centimetre or so, and run a gathering stitch by hand around the base of each ear.  Pull up the gathers and slightly so they sit around the base of the chenille stick.  Then, without breaking your thread, secure the ears to the headband by sewing through the base of each ear and around the headband, until they are firmly in place.  Repeat to secure other ear.

And they're all done!  Add a decorative bow or pompom or anything else you can think of to pretty up your new ears.

These are so quick and easy to make, they would make a great addition to a child's chocolate egg stash!  Or, make some for the whole family and take an awesome Easter family portrait.  My crew sadly won't do this for me.  Too embarassing, apparently.  If you're family is cooler than mine, and you do this - I would love to see it!

Luckily, I still have one poser.

Halloween hairband - tutorial

Halloween is almost upon us - and although it is still a fairly new tradition in  this part of the world, any holiday that endorses dressing up in costume is alright by me.  I'm still not sure about this whole trick-or-treat business, but I'm all over the dress-ups in a big way.  Actually, in a world ruled by me, everyone would be in costume every day.  It would be the law.

But I'm not so keen on those plastic, mass produced discount store costumes, nor the slackers that turn up on the front step in animal onesie pyjamas.  Some effort is needed if you are knocking at my door looking for treats.  I would rather see a kid dressed in a bed-sheet and a mask he or she made herself or wrapped up in a couple of rolls of toilet paper.  Sorry to be a hard-ass, but plastic Scream masks are just so yawn.

Halloween or not though, this is a fun dress-up accessory that the kids (and their adult helper!) can go a bit wild on.  And you will probably have to visit the discount store to get a few things, but in the end, you will have something that could look pretty schmick, totally unique, and you'll have had fun with glue and glitter and paint in the process.  What's not to love, here?

I've done a few variations here to illustrate some different ideas, but once you've made the hairband base, you'll come up with loads of ideas yourself, I'm positive.  This hairband could be adapted for all sorts of occasions - birthdays, bachelorette parties, Christmas, school plays - go wild!

First up, we'll start with the hairband base.  The instructions and materials list include what you need for one hairband.  But of course you could make several at a time.

What you need 

- Cheap plastic hairband (I found a pack of two for two dollars at my local Value Zone).

- 1 chenille stick, 30cm long.

- Sello tape or masking tape.

- Craft ribbon or bias binding - about 2 metres (the cheap stuff is fine).  Even better if you can find it, is the ribbon elastic that is use to make elastic hair-ties - being stretchy, it is much easier to work with.  But it does cost more to buy.  Your call.

- Needle and thread (the same colour as the ribbon).

- Craft glue

- Two straws.  The cheap striped paper ones are ideal.

What you do

Take your chenille stick and bend it  as shown in the diagram below, so it looks like a pair of cat ears.  Please disregard the fact that when you add up the measures in the picture, the total comes to 28 centimetres, not 30 centimetres. I think I was ripped off a couple of cee ems on my chenille sticks.  And a bit of the length is taken up in the bends.  Your chenille stick  doesn't have to be spot on measurement wise, just so long as your prongs can support the straws when you stick them on, all will be sweet.

Twist up those cat ears to make prongs.

Position your twisted chenille stick on the hairband, and stick into place with tape.

Now to wind the craft ribbon around the hairband, from one end to the other. Start my taking the ribbon and winding it tightly two or three times around one end of the hairband to anchor it.

 

Then proceed to wind around the entire band, covering the parts of the chenille stick that are taped flat against the band, but leaving the prongs free.  

 

Once you make it all the way to the end, again wind it around the band  two or three times tightly, snip the ribbon and secure with a few tight hand stitches through the ribbon (this is really the most time consuming and boring part).  Once finished, it will look like this - 

Dab on a generous amount of craft glue on each prong...

...then slide the straws on.  When you push the straws onto the prongs, a bit of glue may be pushed along with them, leaving a big glob of glue at the base of your antenna.  Wipe over gently with a lightly moistened cloth (not too wet or your straws will go soggy) to remove the glue, and leave to dry for a half hour.  Most craft glue dries clears so you won't see any that you may miss.

Once dry, the fun begins - time to decorate!  I could have gone crazy making hundreds of these, but here are just a few for ideas.

For the boys - ALIEN ANTENNA

What you need

- Two ping pong palls (again, the discount store helped out with really cheap, fake ones which are most likely useless for table tennis).

 -Black kids poster paint

 -Kindy glitter glue in colour of your choice

-Paint brush

What you do

Make some holes in your ping pong palls.  I do this by starting with a pin, and then re-piercing the same position with a thicker needle, then re-piercing again with a knitting needle, etc. finding thicker things to pierce the same spot until the hole is thick enough to accomodate the straw.  You culd try wiggling your piercing implement about, in I guess you could call a reaming movement, but very gently, otherwise the ball may split - be careful!  

Pop your ping pong balls on the end of a couple of sticks or spare straws.  Holding the stick or straw, paint with the black paint so that they are entirely covered.  Stand them up in an old cup and leave them to dry.

Once dry, give the balls two coats of  kindy glitter glue, leaving them to dry in between coats.  

Trim the straws on the headband to the length you'd like (take into account the length of straw that will be pushed into the ping pong ball, and then  gently screw the ball onto the straw.  Done.

(*Note - if you're in a hurry, and can't wait for three layers of paint to dry, you could stick on some black circles of paper, or black sticky dots to make eyeballs, like the one Sophie is wearing.)

For the girls - FAIRY ANTENNA

What you need

- Cardboard or craft foam sheet - we used silver craft foam sheet for ours.

- Craft glue.

- Star cookie cutter (or any other shape you might like)

- Pen.

What you do

Take your hairband base and trim straw to desired length.  Flatten the ends of the straws.

On the rear side of your cardboard or foam sheet, trace around the cookie cutter with pen and cut them out. You will need four shapes.

With hairband on a flat surface, place shapes right side downwards, under the straws as shown.  Cover with glue.

Place other two shapes on top of the glue covered ones and press down, sandwiching the straws between the shapes.  Leave to dry (you could put them under something heavy to make sure they dry flat).

And for the absolutely fabulous! - SHOWGIRL HEADPIECE

What you need - 

- An extra three chenille sticks

- An extra six straws

- Foam craft sheet or cardboard- 2 sheets should do it.

- Star cookie cutters, different sizes (or whatever shape you desire)

- Sello-tape or glue

- Scissors

- Pen

What you do

Now for this one, when making the hairband, shape all four chenille sticks, position them on the hairband and stick them down with tape, so your hairband looks like this:

...and then proceed to wind the ribbon around the band, keeping all the prongs free.  Then make as for the the fairy antenna, but of course, you have eight prongs to glue straws onto and stick stars on to.  I was slack here and did not sandwich the straws between two stars, but instead just taped them on.  On the rear side, you can see the straw stuck on with sellotape.  I just didn't have enough time or glittery sparkly cardboard, but if you want it to look as good from the back as it does frontways, by all means sandwich away!  I did however have enough sparkly gold cardboard to make eight smaller stars that I stuck lower down the straw to give it extra sparkle.  

Not that I think my two need any extra sparkle.

So, there you go, quick and easy, cheap and cheerful.  Good for Halloween dress ups at any time of the year.  I am particularly liking that last one for me, actually.  I could totally carry that one off daily, I think.  A world ruled by me, dressing up would be law, remember?  It looks like the Queen has found her hat.

Child's necklace - tutorial

Do you often find you have to buy a bag of a hundred things when you really only need one or two?  I have beads, buttons and bells all over the place which have been leftover from other projects, and as I am in the midst of yet another sewing room clean-out, and I am highly averse to chucking perfectly good stuff out, all these bits were tossed in a box and thunk over.  Hmmmm, what to do?

While I was still scratching my head about this box of stuff, I was one day browsing about in a local gift shop and saw some very average looking, imported character pendants made of plastic beads and polyester ribbon.  Sophie told me that they were nice and she wanted one.  I replied that they were nasty and said we could do better.  So we went home and made our own.

This was actually an easy and over-with-very-quickly project, which is always great when you are crafting with three year olds.  Sophie's involvement actually was just pushing the ribbon ends through the big hole in the head bead (no needle for her!), which took her a good five minutes for both pendants, but as she will tell you, it was the most important part of the whole project. Of course it was!

We made a clown and a bumblebee and following, I've included the materials and methods we used for each of our pendants.  But, depending on what you have in your own box of stuff, all sorts of beads and bobbles and bits could be stringed together differently to make all sorts of characters.

Clown pendant

What you need

Small jingle bell (the one I've used is about 10mm across)
16mm coloured wooden bead
25mm plain unvarnished bead
Star button
Paper drinking straw
6mm wide craft ribbon -
A needle for stringing the beads (optional)
Craft glue (optional)
Pens for drawing face (I've used a black Artline ink pen and a random marker from my son's pencil case)

What you do

1.  Using the pens, draw a face on the larger, unvarnished bead.  Placing it onto the end of a thick pencil or marker to hold it steady while you draw is helpful.

2.  Cut a length of craft ribbon measuring around 80cm long.  Thread one end through the hole in the jingle bell, and move it to centre of the ribbon.  Even up the ends. (You can do your threading with  a needle, but if small children are helping you, it's probably best they just use their fingers.  Pushing ribbon through beads is a great activity for hand/eye co-ordination!)

3.  Thread both ends through the smaller, coloured bead.

 4.  Thread both ends through the head bead.

5.  Take your button and thread one end of ribbon through one hole and the other end through the second hole.  Slide down so that it sits against the head bead, and then tie with a half knot.

6.  Cut a 2cm of drinking straw.  Thread ends of the ribbon through the straw.  Check the length on  the potential wearer (if possible), adjust and tie ends together to form a necklace.  (Optional:  dab a little bit of glue between the straw and button and let dry.  It's not absolutely necessary, but will help keep the hat together.)

Bumble bee pendant

What you need

Small jingle bell (again, 10mm)
16mm coloured wooden bead
25mm plain unvarnished bead
Strip of tulle, about 5cm wide and 10cm long (or use stiff ribbon)
Black drinking straw
2 x 5mm black plastic beads
6mm wide craft ribbon -
A needle for stringing the beads (optional)
Craft glue (optional)
Pens for drawing face

What you do

1.  Follow steps 1 - 3 of instructions for clown pendant.

 2.  Tie the tulle strip around the ribbon to form wings.  Trim ends if needed.  Slide toward coloured bead.

3.  Thread both ends of ribbon through the head bead.

4.  Cut a 2.5cm length of drinking straw.  Thread both ends of the ribbon through the drinking straw and slide into head bead.  Then thread one of the small black beads onto one end of ribbon and the other black bead onto the second end of ribbon.

5.  Again,check the length and knot off into a necklace.  Again, some glue at where the tulle is knotted will keep it from unravelling and help stop the beads from swivelling about.

And, finished....

Time to hang out with a new friend.

These would make fun little trinkets to sell at school or church fetes, or cute little thank you or Christmas gifts for teachers (although adults may prefer them as a key ring or a bag charm).  Package them up nice in cellophane bags with some sparkly star bling (and be sure to add a label that gratuitously promotes your blog).

Butterfly wings - tutorial

More dress-ups!  Just because I love them.  I think love them much more than Sophie does.  If wings like this were socially acceptable for me to wear in public, I most probably would.  If they actually worked, that would be even better. It's been one of those weeks...

These butterfly wings are a cinch to make, and can be made out of small amounts of leftover fabrics.  They slip on the shoulders back-pack style with elastic loops, and can be decorated however you like.   A bunch of these can be made up fairly quickly to keep handy as gifts,  and if your little girl was having a party, these would make a great party favour that guests could wear during celebrations and then take home instead of lollies.  Or, as well as lollies.

What you need -

Fabric for the wings.  Each side (front and back) needs a piece of fabric that is 40cm (16inches) wide by 35cm (14inches) high. Matching, co-ordinating or clashing in colour. Pre-washed cotton fabric is easy to sew, but it could be something shiny or sparkly.  (The fabric I've used on the spotted one is from a very unfashionable skirt I picked up at a second hand store, which isn't cotton.  The back of it is from an old pillow case.)

Extra fabric, again 40cm (16 inches) wide by 35cm (14 inches) high.  This doesn't have to be anything fancy, it will end up on the inside of the wings and you won't see it.  You'll be tracing the pattern onto it, so the plainer the better.  Have a look through your stash for something your dying to get rid of.

Craft wadding (the cheap stuff is fine).  Once again, 40cm (16 inches) wide by 35cm (14 inches) high.

A sheet of craft foam  (to make an inner stabiliser)

About 1 metre of 6mm (1/4 inch) elastic.

Thin card (cereal box) for making template.

Anything  you's like  to decorate your wings with.  Pom poms, ribbons beads, jingle bells, etc.

The usual stuff.  Pins, needle, thread, sewing machine, etc.


What  you do -

Firstly, save the pattern sheet below to your computer, print out two copies of the pattern template onto paper and cut it out.  This pattern template is obviously only half the wings, and you need to make full wings template. 

Fold your cardboard in half and glue the centre line of the template along the fold of the cardboard, cut around the outer wings through both layers of card so that you have a full wing template.  You also need to cut out a template for the inner stabiliser.

Next up stack your fabrics and wadding on a table as follows

- underside of wing fabric (that is the fabric that will be facing the child's back), face up

- outer wing fabric, face down

- wadding,

- and the plain fabric on which you'll draw around your fabric, on top.

Place template on fabric and trace around it.  Don't forget to include the markings for the opening.

Pin as shown through all layers so that nothing shifts as you run it throught the sewing machine.

Stitch around the drawn outline, leaving the  the gap where marked.

Trim around the wing shape, about 1/4 inch from stitching.

Clip around curves, and into corners.

Turn your wings inside out so that the underside and outer wing fabrics are showing, and the batting and plain fabric are on the inside.  Give it a press with the iron.

Make the inner stabiliser.  Trace around pattern template onto craft foam sheet and cut out.

Slide the stabiliser into the wings through the opening, between the batting and the plain fabric.  Bend and twist the stabiliser as needed in order to get it in place.  It's a little bit tricky, this bit.

 Hooray! - nearly done.

Fold in edges of opening and close with hand-stitching.

Top stitch around the wings, about a half centimetre (1/4 inch) from the edge.  I also like to sew a couple of lines down through the centre as well.

For the straps, take the end of the elastic and place it in between the child's shoulder blades, bring it over their shoulder like a back pack strap and back toward the starting point.  Pull it a bit so it's firm but not too tight (you don't want the straps too floppy, nor a threat to the child's circulation), and mark with pencil. Double it over to give yourself twice the length, add about a half inch and cut.    (* Note - if your a bit unsure, err on the side of caution and make it looser rather than tighter.  If the wings sit too floppily when worn, you can always unpick the elastic from the wings, shorten it and re-sew it.)

Being careful not to twist it, and using a zig-zag stitch, sew it into a loop.  Place the elastic join at the top of the wing about a centimetre from the edge and machine stitch it through all layers.  Determine the opposite centre of the elastic (so that both shoulder loops are of the same size) and mark with pencil. 

Stitch at that point on top of the elastic already stitched on, to form the shoulder loops.

On the outer wings, you'll see the stitching you attached the elastic with.  It looks a bit ugly, so cover it up with any decorations you like.  Ribbons, a big bow, beads, a favorite brooch, etc.  If you are a regular visitor, you'll know pompoms are my personal favourite.

I've also added some fabric strips and a couple of jingle bells to Sophie's, to serve both as a handy way of keeping track of her movements while in the playground and also a warning to other children that she is nearby...

 ...because she's a sneaky ...bug.  I almost used another word then, which would probably have been more fitting, but not so G-rated.  I'm thinking of the children.