Do-It-Yourself Hair Decorations

Learn to make striking hair accessories for your fashionable life.

Whether you're looking for the perfect wedding day hairpins or an exquisite way to dress up your locks on ordinary days, consider making your own hair ornaments. If you enjoy wearing flowers or jewels in your hair, you can easily make such accessories by hand. Though the instructions are for decorations on hairpins, you can alter these instructions to suit your own personal style. Therefore, take into consideration the items you wear most frequently, such as decorated headbands, ponytail elastics or barrettes.

Things You'll Need

• Sheer fabric, such as tulle or organza
• Scissors
• Flower template
• Needle
• Thread
• Hairpins
• Beads or pearls
• 26-gauge wire
• Wire cutters

Instructions

Delicate Flowers

1. Purchase your fabric. For all the flower's layers to be seen, select a sheer fabric in any color you wish. Even multicolored flowers work well. Draw or print a six-petaled flower template. This will act as the outline for all of your flower's layers. The flower can be 2 inches wide for little flowers and as large as 7 inches for showy flowers.

2. Cut out the fabric into the appropriate shapes, using the template as your guide. For small flowers, cut five layers to create a flower with the appropriate fullness. Large flowers, however, will need as many as 16 layers.

3. Place the fabric flower outlines on top of one another, making sure that the stack isn't too even. The flowers should not be level with one another, as this creates dimension and layering in the final product. Sew four stitches through the middle to hold the flowers in place.

4. Fold the stack of petals in half, then in half again. By now, the stack should be a quarter of its original size. Sew the side comprised of the two sides folded together. Begin at the central point and stop when you reach the halfway mark. Unfold the flower and fluff out its layers.

5. Sew the flower to a hairpin, being sure to weave figure eights through both sides of the U-shaped portion. This will keep the flower from sliding across the pin, allowing it to stay stable in your hair.

Beaded Adornments

1. Thread beads onto the wire. You may want single pearl-headed corsage pins or vibrant clusters of beads.

2. Twist the loose ends of the wire together to create the cluster of beads and hold them securely. Wrap the wire around the top of a hairpin, using a figure-eight weave to keep the beads firmly attached to both sides of the pin.

3. Twist the wire back up to the beads and push the loose ends into a beads. This will keep the wire from snagging in your hair. Trim away the excess wire for a smooth finish.

Tips & Warnings

• Resist the urge to fix your adornments to the hairpins with hot glue. Though this is faster than sewing, hot glue can melt in the sun, leaving you with a sticky mess on your head.

References

• Fifties Weddings: How to Make a Birdcage Veil by Hip Hostese
• The Beading Gem's Journal; How to Make French and Victorian Beaded Wire Flowers; 22 February 2009
• Craft Bits: Vintage Beaded Flowers
• Beaded Flower Patterns: What is a French Beaded Flower?
• All Info About Jewelry Making: Bead and Wire Flower Hair Pin