How To Make Mini Velcro Hairclips - A Tutorial

You will need:

• glue gun
• elastic thread, or regular sewing thread will do if you don't have it.
• 3/8" grosgrain ribbon
• scissors
• lighter or such to melt ribbon ends
• velcro
• cardboard or something to protect your table from the glue gun

To make the little clips, cut a 2 1/4" piece of ribbon (or two for a set), singe the ends to keep them from fraying, and fold it in half. 

Cut your velcro down to fit on the ribbon (about 3/4" long), stick on your self adhesive velcro, or use a hot glue gun to secure it if it's not sticky on one side.

Now to make the bow, loop one side over towards you, 

and then loop it back over top and cut off the end about even with the tip sticking out underneath.

Pinch your bow between your thumb and forefinger, as above, and wrap the elastic thread around it, pulling it tight and tie a knot. 

Then cut a 1" piece of ribbon to go around your bow. Attach with glue on the wrong side of the bow, wrap around and glue again.

Now all that's left is to attach your bow to your little clip! Hot glue and press on gently.

Pretty easy, right?

All I did for presentation for the gift was cut a piece of card stock with two parallel lines 1/2" apart down the middle and clip them on. Gift complete!

How To Make Wide Chevron Friendship Bracelets

This friendship bracelet is a lot easier to make than it looks because although you have quite a few strings, you deal with them in twos instead of individually. Petunia is 9 and she made one for her friend. It's been a great project that kept her busy in fits ands starts for about a week.

OH SO PRETTY the DIARIES has a great tutorial for this bracelet that's clear and easy to follow.

I got the idea for this adding a button to the bracelet from this tutorial from friendship-bracelets.net, but my way was simpler. Finish the bracelet, get some thread that will blend in and just sew it on. 

Creating a button hole is easy too. You can check that tutorial out on friendship-bracelets.net as well. All you do is skip the step connecting the two sides in the middle point for about 3-5 rows, depending on the size of your button.

To end it, because obviously it's all in a V-shape, I just evened off the edges with knots as well as I could and tied them off.


see the rest of the series:

How to make a Simple Knot Friendship Bracelet

How to make Knotted Hearts Friendship Bracelets

Upcycle your old gift cards to make a headphones holder!

Don't you just hate the mess that headphones always are, no matter how nicely you try to wrap/fold/wind them up? Drives me crazy. And then I found the tutorial for how to end the craziness at Green Issues by Agy via CraftGawker. 

going from this:

to this:

Ahhh . . . 

I can tell you I'm going to be making a few more of these for other cords lying around here. My iPod charger is next. And the kids can make their own for their headphones ... but it takes an adult (or someone just a bit stronger than me would be good!) to punch those holes. Yikes, that's hard! But seriously, sitting here, looking at my now tidy headphones is a stress reliever in itself.

Check out the tutorial here.

Have a spectacular long weekend!

Baby Gift Idea - Set of Soft Balls

I recently needed a quick extra for a baby gift and remembered the tutorial for these sweet baby balls from Grand Revival Design (scroll down and look for her free tutorials on the right side). I love projects that use fabric scraps, and I've got a couple more in the works. These came together even easier than I expected. I stuffed them, took the picture, then stuffed them quite a bit fuller. I didn't get a new picture of them but they looked even better after the second stuffing, so if you make them make sure you stuff them well. They're rounder that way.

Happy Thanksgiving to all you fellow Canadians!

No Sew Fabric Flowers

I found a tutorial for No Sew Fabric Flowers on Made, one of my favourite craft blogs recently, so I whipped them up quick to give to my mom on Mother's Day. I decided last minute to go to see my family for the weekend and figured these could survive the trip. I should have painted the sticks and/or filled the vase with coloured stones but I was seriously short on time. The pink polka dot one is made from wide ribbon. I think I actually like that best.

Here are a few more that I made.

So? What are you waiting for? Give it a try!

52 Things Mini Book

This is the altered deck of cards mini book I made my hubby for valentines day. This idea is from Kelly at Trans-craftinental, via (Dollar Store Crafts). I made this one 52 things I respect about you. I kept it simple, which is hard for me, but I like the cards showing instead of covering them completely.