How To Make A Tulle Beaded Hair Bow

by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 26, 2011 | Craft, Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

This whole cleaning out of the craft stash is making me a little obsessed with making different/not my standard bows. I’ve seen mesh bows filled with pompoms a lot lately and wanted to try making some. I didn’t have pompoms so I substituted with some very light beads. You could use either or really anything as long as it’s not too heavy.

End result:

What you need:

Plastic beads (I’m using pearls and some blue ones)
Tulle netting fabric
Scissors, needle, thread

Cut 2 rectangles of netting.

Lay them together and stitch around the outside leaving a gap at one corner to feed in the beads.

Turn it inside out through the hole.

Start inserting your decorations. I made a little paper funnel and poured them in to speed up the process.

Blue done!

Add in some pearls to give it more shape…

It needs to be around 2/3 full so there’s still room to tie in the middle.

Stitch the hole closed…

Cut another rectangle of the netting.

Tie in the middle and you’re done!

The tulle I had on hand was bridal tulle so it doesn’t hold the shape particularly well. You can use heavy duty tulle, add a wire frame or a piece of felt inside as a backing to help it. I decided to leave mine floppy because they way I’m going to wear it my hair will prop it up!

I’m quite taken with this style now so as soon as I can find the damn mini pompoms in my craft shelves I’m going to make some more!

I think I might use bows like this to decorate my vanity now that’s it’s become my new hair/make up area… ugh that just means more cleaning ;_;

How To Make A Floaty Tulle Hair Bow Accessory

by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 24, 2011 | Craft, Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

The cleaning out of the craft stash continues and therefore the making of the large amount of hair things continues! On today’s menu is a floaty, drapy slightly deconstructed hair bow. In my head I’m imagining it being worn by and adorable match stick girl or in more earthy tones in a mori coordination ^_^

The result…

What you need:

Floaty fabric, I’m using gauze but you could also use chiffon or something similar
Tulle for the middle bit
Needle and thread

Cut out a really big rectangle. It needs to be twice as wide as you want the tail bits to end up.

Fold it in half side ways.

Start cutting diagonally up from the outside bottom corner.

Keep cutting diagonally until you get 2/3rds of the way then cut straight upwards. It should look like this…

Unfolded:

Take the pieces that you just cut out and lay them overlapping like this:

Then add the big piece over the top…

Starting from the top, use your fingers to fold the fabric back and forth over and over so it bunches together.

You can see it starting to come together now…

It’s completely optional but I decided to add a rectangle of pretty tulle to the middle as an extra point of interest.

Cut another small rectangle of the main fabric to act as the middle tie.

Wrap it around the bunched middle of everything tightly.

Stitch in place!

To give it that extra soft feel, run your hands over the edges of the fabric to make it fray.

And done!

Very little sewing required and still pretty ^_^ I think the raw edges really give an extra point of interest on this one!

Of course if you’re not into the gigantic bows like me you could always make one much smaller ^_^ I like my bows gigantic though. If you preferred a more finished look you could also add rolled hems to the edges. Personally I wanted this one to be huge, frayed and floaty.

Hope all of you have had better weeks than me, James computer exploded this morning with a huge pop and flash. Clearly this is not my week for technology >_<

How To Make A Lace and Pompom Headband

by VioletLeBeaux | Jun 8, 2011 | Craft, Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

I’m on a cleaning kick with my craft stuff so I’m looking at ways to use up old supplies! Extra lace? Extra ribbon? Random pompoms? Time to make a cute Wintery hair band 😀

Finished project:

You need:

Eyelet lace
Thin ribbon
Needle, thread, scissors
Pompoms

Normally I’m not a fan of cheap non-cotton lace but this roll was especially pretty so I’ve kept it waiting for the right project and this is where it ended up XD

Take a length of ribbon long enough to go around your head. Then tie it at the back and thread it through the eyelet’s in the middle of the lace. You need to have enough lace so that when it’s bunched up it will go from ear to ear.

Stitch the ends in place on the ribbon…

Cut two more lengths of ribbon around 20cm each. Cut the ends of one into points.

Fold the ends of the top piece of lace in to the center.

Stitch it in place. Fold the other piece in half on an angle so it forms the tail of the bow like this:

Stitch that in place too.

Wrap the thread around the center of the bow a few times so it bunches in.

Cut the tails of the pompoms to slightly different lengths:

Stitch them to the back of the bow:

And sew the whole thing on to the end of the bunched ribbon. Done!

Pretty 😀 I really like how this turned out, it’s so simple but really pretty. It actually reminds me a bit of mori girl fashion which I have a bit of a love for at the moment.

As I go through and clean out my scraps I think there will be more hair accessories because they are such a great way to use up little pieces 😀

DIY Pearl Beret- Quick Craft

by VioletLeBeaux | Apr 6, 2011 | Craft, Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

Last winter berets with little pearls were everywhere in shops at crazy prices and now that it’s getting colder I’ve started seeing them in stores again. They are really cute but paying $30 for a pearl studded beret is out of my budget especially when you can get a plain one for like $6 and diy it ^_^

I had this pink one that I never really used anymore, I picked it up at a Portman’s clearance outlet a couple of years ago so I spent a few minutes jazzing it up.

What you need:

Beret
Plastic fake pearls
Thread and needle

Before I started I laid all of the pearls out so I could get the correct spacing. I started from the outside and worked in. Once I get the pattern section of the blog up I will add in a diagram.

With the beret laid flat I spaced out 10 pearls around the outside.

Then working in I added another row, spacing them between the first ones. It’s important to use plastic pearls on a project like this so it doesn’t weight the hat down. Also rather than stitching them on using one long thread sewn throughout the hat I tied each pearl on individually. This means that if one came loose the rest would be fine and also a lot less effort in the stitching/making sure the stretch of the knit was maintained.

This is what it looked like after the top was done:

Then it was time to turn over and do the other side…

I toyed with the idea of a row of pearls around the very edge but decided to keep it more subtle instead.

And here I am wearing it at a the Melbourne Flower show on the weekend!

I love projects like this that add a lot of small details to an outfit. Tiny little touches that just give something an extra level of depth make me very happy ^_^

How To Make A Hello Kitty Velcro Hair Holder

by VioletLeBeaux | Mar 28, 2011 | Beauty, Beauty-Tutorials, Craft, Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

Here is another super quick craft which can be done during an episode of something on tv 😀 These haven’t quite made it to Aus yet but when traveling I’ve seen how popular they are in Asia. Basically it’s a shape (usually a bow or something equally cute) with velcro on the back to hold your fringe out of the way while you do your make up/remove it. I think the idea is that it doesn’t kink/shape the hair like holding with a pin would.

I chose to make mine in the shape of Hello Kitty’s bow because… well I couldn’t think of any other shapes and I’m running out of other felt colours haha!

Photos are iphone quality unfortunately because this was a midnight craft idea!

What you need:

Felt
Needle and thread
Velcro strips

First cut out the main shape of the bow in black felt. I didn’t have any large pieces yet so I did it in sections and stitched them together. It’s a fairly easy shape but if anyone wants it let me know and I’ll put up a pattern.

Separate the two sides of your velcro. The side you want to use it the scratchy one not the soft one. The soft one won’t grab on to your hair.

Cut enough so you can cover as much of the bow as possible, I needed two strips.

Stitch it in place and cut off the extra.

Now it’s time to add in the main colour of the bow. Cut out the red pieces of felt like below. They need to be a couple of mm smaller than the black so it appears as if there’s a border.

Stitch it together and you’re finished 😀

Useful, cute and distracting from how sleep deprived you look first thing in the morning ;D Now that’s the trifecta!

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How To Make Tissue Flowers

by VioletLeBeaux | Mar 24, 2011 | Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

This is another one of those crafts that I think we all did as children at some point but when done in a more delicate way it can be used as a great hair accessory. Tissue flowers!

What you need:

Several tissues
Piece of string/thread
Ink/food dye/watery paint
Paint brush

I’m using cute tissues that have designs stamped on them but you can use regular ones too, the only real requirement is that they be several ply each. Lay a stack or 2-3 tissues out on a table.

Fold the combined edges over around 1cm.

Continue folding back and forth so it forms an accordion shape.

When you reach the end you should have something like the photo below.

It can be hard to crease tissues so it’s a good idea to lay it down and run your hands along like this:

Find the middle by folding it in half…

And tie it tightly with the thread.

Now from here there are two main ways to continue…

I’ll show you the one on the right first!

It should be noted that when I took the photos for these I couldn’t get the colour to show up a reasonable amount so I have photoshopped it to have a lot more contrast and colour so you can really see what’s going on.

Next step is to separate the layers of tissue…