Part of our back-to-school wardrobe for P always involves hair accessories. It’s just part of the deal with girls. We’re in a tricky spot though because P is too old for the pink girly stuff, and I don’t want to spend a small fortune on boutique hair gear that’s cool enough for school.
Enter: dollar store headbands.
I literally got everything in these photos from the dollar store. I figure by the time I do a bunch of headbands and barrettes, we’re talking something like .20 cents per hair accessory. Not too shabby my friends, not shabby at all.
Supplies:
- fake flowers
- headbands
- glue sticks
- glue gun
Find some cute flowers. Don’t pay any attention to what’s in the center, or how cheesy they look; you’ll be ripping out the innards of the flower anyway. Just look for good colors and decent flowers. I was really surprised how many great ones I found at my dollar store.
Pop all the flowers off the stems. We actually saved the leaves off this bunch too, just in case we wanted to add some leaves next to the flowers on the headbands. A little diversity never hurt anyone.
Get rid of all the green plastic. The stems, the centers of the flowers, all of it. Recycle it though. There’s no reason to clog the landfills with plastic flowers just because I’m not clever enough to come up with a craft for the leftovers.
What you end up with is a bunch of layers of different sized flowers. Perfect. Do this to all your flowers until you end up with this:
I put all the leftover flowers in individual Zip-Loc bags for later. You know how I love me some Zip-Locs. We’re doing barrettes next and I wanted the flowers organized. My brain is just much happier when things are organized, especially by color.
This is where your creativity comes into play. Layer the flowers however you please. P really liked the green roses but wanted a little pop of white in the center. Arrange a few flower layers and hot glue them together like so:
Now hot glue your new flower onto your headband and, voila!
Cute, right?
We made a second one because we were having too much fun. I burned myself with the hot glue a few times, but that’s to be expected. Aren’t they adorable? And for .20 cents, come on people!
What do you think? I’m so in love with the whole thing I’m now on the lookout for some high quality silk flowers to make some headbands of my own.
Allison
Hello there! I'm Allison Czarnecki, founder + editor of Petit Elefant, a blog all about style on a budget for every part of your life: style / home / travel / family. I do a lot of how-to beauty + style tutorials, travel posts, easy recipes, home remodel projects, and cool DIY crafts you totally want to try. I'm super happily married (to a hot Polish immigrant) and am the mother of two kids, a daughter and son, all of whom are featured here on the regular. We live in the country but we're a little bit rock + roll. Welcome!
love the idea!!i've got three girl heads besides my own to make pretty so i'm always looking for ideas. Thanks!!1
zoo keeper,
no problem! make one for yourself while you're at it, they're fabulous.
Darling idea! Me and my "Divas" need to make some!
these are so cute! i'm going to have to try this for myself, i've been wanting to do something fun with my hair since i'm trying to grow it out and it's no fun!
How cute!
you are queen
YelliKelli:
If you have mini divas, you must be the queen diva. And all queen divas need beautiful headbands.
Becki:
Honestly, this would be so cute in *weird-growing-out-hair* stage styling. So cute.
Donna:
You have some nieces who would looooove some of these. Craft day? My house?
KJ:
Yes, and don't you ever forget it {wink}.
Very cute and it definitely looks do-able even for me.
I did this same thing last week for myself. SLC county $$ stores are lacking good flowers, though. However, I bought the same headbands. Yahoo.
Valerie,
Seriously? Easy peasy. You'll shock yourself.
Lori,
Come play in my neighborhood, I'll help you find some cheap flowers!
These are so great!! So easy and fun to make. My girls are going to love these.
Marie,
Honestly, this is something your 4 year old will love. P had so much fun pulling the flowers apart.
I made mine like you told me to. Here are my adjustments:
Took flowers apart. Threaded a folded rubberband through centers. Put three small beads on folded rubberband, and threaded rubberband back through the holes in centers. Does that make sense at all? that way, I can just attach the flowers to whatever hairband I'm wearing. I have a cute faux leather one that I've had since high school and didn't want to glue gun anything to it.
Cicada,
What a great idea! Really though, it's like speaking Greek to me. I need photo tutorials. I'm visual like that.
We made these the next day! I did modify it and place gems in the center.
Here is my post
http://sillymommy2sillygirls.blogspot.com/2009/09/flower-headbands-tutorial.html
Noreen,
It actually needed something in the center but I couldn't find anything at the dollar store. Yours are really cute.
That is so beautiful! I love flowers in my hair! Thank you so much for this!
Alisa,
Don't we all love flowers in our hair? Just one more way to be pretty!
Thanks Allison. Maybe we will make these at girls’ camp this summer…off to the dollar store! I needed a simple craft idea!
Staish