Clearly, I am addicted to Halloween. I am also addicted to dressing up my little girl. Let’s just say she has quite a few headbands. I decided to make her a Halloween flowers and feathers headband using the leftover fabric from a fun ruffly skirt that I made using a variety of Halloween fabrics from JoAnn Fabric and Craft Stores. (This is the tutorial that I used for my skirt, although I did change the measurements some. It turned out so cute that I made one for my best friend’s daughter as well.) I used a flower making technique that I love, which is rolling fabric using a glue gun. This may take you less than 30 minutes or it may take you more, depending on how many flowers you decide to roll. I made my daughter the headband that you see in the middle above, and then I made the petite headband for a friend’s baby and the massive one for my best friend’s daughter. That friend is a bit flashy, if you didn’t guess that already. It looks more like a hat. Haha. Her daughter is a toddler, so hopefully it fits her a bit better, but, let’s be honest, it would be big on MY head!
My favorite thing about these headbands are the feather beds that add style and texture peeking out behind the flowers, but they are also more flexible and light than felt, which is what I usually use as the base for my headbands . With huge headbands a felt base can get pretty stiff, but after I glued the flowers on top of the feathers I gently bent and broke the feather bed so that they would bend and fit to baby’s head better.
Let’s get creating!
Start by making your flowers so that you can lay them out and know what size of feather bed to make. There are many flower making tutorials out there, but here are the details of making these flowers, just in case you haven’t already seen one of them. You can use this hot glue method or the Fabric Mod Podge method from Sweet C’s. If you use hot glue I highly reccommend using a low heat glue gun so that you don’t burn your fingertips and you can still manipulate the fabric to get your flowers just right. Here are the steps to making these simple flowers:
Cut your fabric strips.
Twist the fabric with your fingers.
As you start to roll up your twisted fabric like a flower dab hot glue on the fabric and continue to wrap so that the flowers stay tightly wound.
When your flower gets to the size that you like simply cut off the remainder of the fabric and glue the fabric end on the back of the flower to finish it off.
Now you are ready to create your feather bed base. Start by laying out your feathers and flowers until you have the desired look and size. Pile the feathers on top of one another.
Dab small amounts of hot glue (this is where the low heat is important) on various parts of your feather base, but ONLY where the feathers will be covered with the flowers.
Now hot glue your flowers on top of your feather base. Trim the feathers if you need to in order to get the desired look. Once the glue has cooled gently bend and break your feather base so that it will be more flexible and fit onto your lady’s head more precisely.
Time to attach your flowers and feather to your headband. I make my headbands with fold over elastic. You can buy some colors of it at places like JoAnns and Hobby Lobby, or you can buy it by the yard in almost any color on Etsy. Then you will simply measure your baby’s head, cut the elastic, overlap it a bit and pin it in place. Then zig zag stitch back and forth to make a super secure headband.
Hot glue your flowers and feather onto your headbands. Now go try it on your cute little lady (or yourself)! I hope you are as happy with yours as I am with mine! Here area a few more pictures of the headbands in action.
Mini Headband
Medium headband and a small glimpse of the 6 layered ruffle skirt.
Another shot of the medium headband, along with a pic of the bow tie that I also made from the same JoAnn Fabric and Craft Store Halloween fabric. Man, I love my kids!
Massive headband that looks like a hat. Heehee.
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[…] for my baby girl is pretty large, but the one for the daughter of my BFF is rather huge. Remember the feathered hat I made her for Halloween? Yeah, her mom has problems. (Her words, not mine!) 😉 However, […]