Shabby Chic Fabric Hair Clips

Today, I’m excited to share a simple fabric craft that’s fat quarter friendly and only takes 5-10 minutes to make.  Leave the sewing machine behind for these DIY fabric flowers; I’ll show you the easy basting stitch that anyone can do by hand for instant fabric rosettes – even if you’ve never tried sewing before!

This is one of my long-time favorite fabric crafts, ad now that my daughter is back in school and rocking an entirely different wardrobe than when she was younger, I made up a few of these DIY floral hair clips to pin into ponytails and hold back those loose hairs.  These clips are also really versatile!  You can clip them onto tote bags, flat shoes – even use them in locker decor!  So don’t be shy, pick a few of your favorite fabrics and gather up your supplies!

Supplies needed to make your own DIY fabric flowers:

• 21″ Long Fabric (you can make 10-12 flowers from just one fat quarter!)
• Alligator Hair Clips
• Needle and Thread (about 24″ of thread for each clip)
• Scissors
• Hot Glue Gun

For the shabby chic look, tearing your fabric will give you a slightly fringed edge.  It’s easy to do – and even faster than using scissors. Make a small cut at the edge of your fat quarter along the 21″ side, and tear the strip off.  You will want both sides of your fabric strip to be the same, so measure 1.5″ (give or take – this doesn’t have to be exact down to the mm) make another small cut, and tear off your measured fabric strip.  This is what will become your rosette.

Take a moment to cut two small circles of coordinating fabric about 1″ in diameter.  Because these will be placed on the underside of the flower and won’t show, you can freehand these circles if you wish to.   Cut approximately 24″ of coordinating thread and thread your needle with it.  The stitches will also not show when you are finished, so feel free to use any thread you have on-hand instead of worrying about matching it exactly to your fabric.

On the 1.5 inch edge of the fabric, pass the needle through at the edge and at the center point of the fabric.  Tie a knot at the end of the thread so that it doesn’t slip out while you’re working.  Then, use a basting stitch through the center of the fabric strip as pictured above.  The most important thing is to keep your stitches centered with .75″ on each side of your stitching.  If some stitches are longer or short than others, that won’t matter at the end.

If you’re unfamiliar with needlework of any kind, what you are doing in this step is passing the needle up and down through the center of the fabric.  you are not attaching anything or sewing anything together!  The reason for this stitch is to make the next steps quick and easy.

Once you have reached the end of your fabric strip, leave the thread loose rather than tying it off.  Fold the strip in half lengthwise along the stitches, allowing the printed side of your fabric to show on each side.  (Tip: If you find it difficult to keep the fabric folded in half, you can use a warm iron to press the fold.)  Then, slowly and gently pull the thread from the loose end of your fabric strip, which will cause your fabric to ruffle.  Pull the thread until you have a 10-12″ strip of ruffled fabric.  You can slide the fabric along the thread until you have the desired length, making it longer or shorter as necessary.  When you’re happy with the length, tie the end of the thread off and trim the excess off.

Now, beginning at either edge of your newly-made ruffle, coil the fabric into a spiral.  This will become the bottom of your fabric flower.  Then, apply hot glue to the flat side of the flower (you’ll notice this is where your thread is!) and glue one of the fabric circles on.  Do make sure you get glue along the entire spiral, so that fabric doesn’t slip out later after wearing it.

Finally, add the clip!  Run a line of glue down the center of the remaining fabric circle, and glue it to the inside top of the alligator clip.  Then, apply a final layer of glue onto the backside of the flower, and glue this circle on, securing the top of the alligator clip between two circles of fabric.

Hot glue dries quickly, so these DIY fabric flowers will be ready to wear as soon as they are cool!  As you learn this technique, expect it to take 10 or possibly 15 minutes to create your first flower.  As soon as you get the hang of it, it will go much more quickly!  I can typically make 3-4 flowers in 15 minutes.

These inexpensive and colorful accessories are useful for embellishing nearly anything, so don’t limit yourself strictly to hair accessories!  There are many possibilities for DIY decor and DIY accessories!

Thanks for joining me for today’s quick DIY fabric flowers, and I’ll see you all again soon!

Looking for another awesome fat quarter project? Check out this weighted blanket tutorial!

Adrianne

Adrianne is a writer, artist, designer, wife, and mom of 2 kids. She blogs at happyhourprojects.com where the theme is tutorials and recipes that can be made in an hour or less. Her favorite projects are jewelry-making, paper crafts, and recycled crafts. She participates annually in ArtPrize, an international art competition, and she’s the author of the book DIY T-Shirt Crafts: 50 Ways to Recycle a T-Shirt (August 2015).