Continued Adventures in DIY

A few weeks ago I blogged about how I found this tutorial that I just HAD to try for my niece’s upcoming 3rd birthday as part of her present.  Since then, the project has evolved and grown to include MANY more barrettes and some headbands too.  I love these little felt flowers.  They are so cute and pretty easy to make if you have a basic knowledge of how to sew by hand.

I took some more photos of the finished products and I wanted to share them and all their beautifulness.

      

My bestest friend in the whole wide world liked the barrettes enough to commission a few to give her flower girls as part of their wedding gift at her upcoming June wedding.  And of course, I was honored to do so…especially with so much leftover felt.  I have enough leftover felt to make at least another 30 barrettes!

As I mentioned above, the project evolved and I made some headbands too.  I got some discount plastic headbands at the store and decided to modify the design so the felt flowers could adore headbands too.  I used the same flower pattern with just a slight modification to the base, so that the flower could affix to the headband.

  

Below are some photos of the modification I made to the base.  The idea is to allow for options: (1) the flowers can be taken off so the headband can be worn alone, (2) the flowers can be interchanged from one headband to the other, or (3) a few flowers can be worn on one headband at a time pushed next to each other or in whatever position the wearer chooses.

All the felt flowers, and the rest of my niece’s birthday gifts, are now in the mail.  I sure hope she likes them as much as I do.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY RILEY!!!

Adventures in DIY

I found this tutorial that I just HAD to try for my niece’s upcoming 3rd birthday as part of her present.  Awhile back I gave my sister a bunch of barrettes that I still had hanging around from back in the 80’s (yes, I am THAT big of a pack-rat) so that she could use them for my niece.  Silly me, I figured that they weren’t being used by me any more and they would be cute on my little niece.  Turns out I was wrong, and they are in fact ugly.  The barrettes I passed down looked something like the ones pictured here (below) and found on Etsy.  Personally, I still think they are kind of cute…you know, in a vintage sort of way.

 

Here are some photos from the Purl Bee tutorial on their website.  They have a lot of other brilliant DIY ideas as well.  In fact, I found a few more that I may have to give a whirl.

The biggest problem I had was finding embroidery thread for the project.  The felt was easy, and the barrettes too, but I stared at the thread rack at the fabric store for 20 minutes straight and at the crochet aisle for another 20 minutes before just giving up.  After further research (online and via talking to my mom), I decided to purchase a crochet thread in size 10 and it worked perfectly.

Once I got the hang of making these barrettes using the Purl Bee tutorial, each barrette became easier and easier to make.  I was happy that my mom was visiting to help me decipher the instructions.  And I was happy also that I had at least a little experience in sewing.

Here are some photos from my adventure in DIY.  Enjoy!  My dog Madison was even content to model (so content she snoozed through the whole thing)…although on her it looks a bit more like a little hot pink cowboy hat than a flower barrette.

 

This is what the pieces of felt look like before they are sewn together to make a flower.

The finished product!!!  Although, they were SO much fun and SO cute that I think I am going to make a few more!