whiptips – practical advice on making hair clips
Whiptips – a crafts advice column for readers to ask questions or offer advice by leaving comments. View the Whiptips archive here. You can submit questions, to whiptips@gmail.com. Please include photos with your questions!
Alisa from one was johnny writes in asking for ideas and practical advice on how to make hair clips.
I have a 4 year old daughter with some serious scarecrow hair. We need to keep it in clips or ponytails but she hates “plain boring” ones. She’s more interested in wearing the frilly ribbon clips that the girl across the street wears.
I’d love to make some hairclips for her (with her, actually) but I’m stumped on how to make some actual cool clips that aren’t over the top dripping in pink lacy cuteness.
Any suggestions? Any tutorials? I’d love to see what others have done. Plus this seems to fit right in with the whiplash theme this month.
October 8th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
I just bought some hair clips with little holes in them yesterday, at a bead shop. They are the kind that look like quilter’s binding clips, that you bend to make them open or close, only bigger. I plan to sew something onto them, what I don’t know yet. Maybe some little felt owls? Buttons? The possibilities are endless.
October 8th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
i use the plain metal barrettes/clips or large bobby pins and just glue on wool felt shapes (flowers, animals, insects, shapes), vintage or novelty buttons, fabric yo-yos, fabric flowers, etc. in bright colors.
October 8th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
You may already know this but if her hair is very fine barrettes probably slide out. I’ve found that using velcro on the inside of the barrette (the part that holds the hair) helps a lot.
October 9th, 2006 at 12:09 am
Craftster has some really cute flower hairpin tutorials that might work- how girly it ends up depends on the fabric.
Original Tutorial
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=24944
Rounded petals variant (I like this one better, but what do I know?)
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?board=14;topic=25125.5
October 9th, 2006 at 4:06 am
i make short spiky felt hairpieces that may inspire you – you can see them on my website at http://mediumreality.com. Maybe they can give you some ideas? wool felt is really versatile and light – so you can make bigger shapes and have them not weigh down the hair.
October 11th, 2006 at 3:04 am
I made some decorative hair things by stitching a cool, largish button to a hair band from Target. Quick and easy and it dressed them up quite a bit.
October 13th, 2006 at 6:22 am
My mom made some fun barrettes for me when I was little that I still love the idea of… she took the 2-bar barrettes from the drugstore (like Goody brand) and one or two colors of 1/8″ satin ribbon, folded the ribbon in half and wrapped it around the “short end” (where the clasp-y bit is) of the barrette, then wove the ends (alternating colors) through the space between the bars, covering up the metal of the barrette. She repeated until the barrette was covered. The remaining ribbon ends (about 4 to 6″) she tied into a knot to secure and they hung down like streamers into my hair. I liked them because I had MANY different colors for all my outfits, and they had streamers like my bike! Hope you find something your daughter likes as much as I liked these.
March 30th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
A huge find for me was that quilting clips are really the “snap” clips used for barrettes! They run like $2 for a package of 50. Gotta love it.