If there are babies or young girls on your gift list this year, these go together quick and easy–and are cute and trendy to boot!

Here’s what you need to get going:

• Some double pronged salon clips. I bought mine at a local hair supply store, a box of 80 for about $6.

• Glue Gun and glue sticks

• 3/8″ ribbon. I used grosgrain because I like it. Twill tape works well too. Satin is a little hard to work with, and with organza, you’ll likely get burned with the glue coming through. If you’re like me you might get burned anyway.

• Fake flowers. There are several ways to acquire these. Scrapbook stores sell them as embellishments, but make sure you’re getting fabric/felt ones, not paper. You can also buy stems of flowers at a craft store and take them apart. Finally, you can buy felt squares (they were 25 cents a piece at my local JoAnn’s) and cut out your own flowers.

• Flower middles. These can be anything from buttons, to little rhinestones, to scrapbooking brads. Use your imagination. I like using brads to hold all the layers together, and then gluing buttons or rhinestones on top.

Here’s how to do it:

• First, cover the alligator clip with ribbon. Using the glue gun, start on the underside of the clip (that’s the straight side, without any angles). Glue the edge of the ribbon down then fold it over to continue covering the clip. This gives a nice folded edge look, that won’t fray. Glue the ribbon all the way around the clip, stopping on the underside of the top set of prongs. The bottom set will remain exposed so that we can clip it to things later.

• Assemble your flowers. Combine different sizes, colors, and shapes for visual interest. Also, keep in mind what colors are popular or favorites for children’s clothing. I had fun with mine and made some seasonal, even. Try to incorporate 3 or 4 layers so that the flower has some depth.

• Put the layers together with a brad, or glue them together with your hot glue gun (careful, or your fingers will look like mine).

• Add some flair by putting glitter, rhinestones, buttons, fuzzy yarn, or brads. I used some glitter glue on a few of the petals and it turned out really cute.

• Glue the flower to the alligator clip you covered earlier. Try to align the clip over any brad prongs so that they don’t catch hair.

You’re done with the flowers, now on to the headbands. I use crocheted baby headbands that I bought online. I’ve also seen them in boutiques and even a grocery store or two.  They are cute, and stretchy and feminine, and the alligator clips can clip right into the fabric.

Alternately, you can make headbands out of knee-high nylons. Just take the nylon, cut off the toe and the ribbing at the top. Now, take the long middle part of the nylon and glue the two cut ends together, making a loop out of the remaining sock.  Then, you can make a loop (with the ribbing) to wrap around the area you just glued together. Leave part of it not glued down so that you can slip the alligator clip in, and voila! A cute, interchangeable headband!

P.S. If you’d like to scrap the headband idea and just make some cute flowers to clip in hair (these work better for older girls, not babies), you can always assemble the flowers as above, but instead of using alligator clips, use the spring loaded clips. Again, purchaseable at a well stocked craft store.

Happy headbanding!

~April~