How to Decorate Headbands

A headband is a simple way to distinguish your baby girl from a baby boy, or to keep long hair out of your active daughter's face. As an adult, you can use headbands as an inexpensive way to dress up an everyday outfit while keeping your hair under control. However it's used, a headband is nothing more than a piece of plastic or cloth until you decorate it.

Things You'll Need

• Fine glitter
• Paper plate
• Plain plastic headband
• Foam brush
• Decoupage medium
• Low-temperature hot glue gun
• Feathers
• Plain alligator clip
• Silk flower
• Scissors
• Felt in coordinating color
• Cloth children's headband

Instructions

Glitter Headband

1. Pour the container of fine glitter out on a paper plate.

2. Paint the top portion of the headband, the part that faces away from your head, with a generous amount of decoupage medium, using a foam brush.

3. Press the headband down into the glitter and rock it back and forth to cover the entire top. Tap the headband off on the plate. Let it dry for 2 hours.

4. Paint another layer of decoupage medium over the top of the glitter-covered portion of the headband to seal the glitter on it.

Feather Headband

1. Hold a feather, upside down, so that the tip of the feather is lined up with one end of the headband, with the stem of the feather extending toward the top of the band. Place a small dot of low-temperature hot glue where the end of the feather's stem is on the headband. Press the end of the stem into the hot glue.

2. Place another feather, again upside down, on the band so the tip of the feather is about an inch above the tip of the first feather. Glue the end of the feather's stem to the head band in the same manner as the first.

3. Continue gluing feathers to the headband so they overlap in this manner until the end of the last feather's stem lines up with the other end of the headband.

Children's Headband

1. Cut the stem from a silk flower, using scissors. Cut the stem as close to the bottom of the flower as possible.

2. Cut a circle of felt roughly the size of the green part on the underside of the flower -- the part that holds the flower together.

3. Cover one side of the felt circle with a thin layer of hot glue. Open the alligator clip and place the circle of felt inside, glue side up. Place the silk flower on the outside of the clip so the felt circle is adhered to the underside of the silk flower, with the top arm of the clip sandwiched between the two.

4. Clip the silk flower onto a children's cloth headband.

Tips & Warnings

• Splurge on the more expensive feathers from the jewelry-making section of the craft store, rather than the cheap ones in the general crafting section, for a more professional result. Also, shorter feathers with a slight arch to them work best.

• You can glue several different types of embellishments, like small silk flowers, buttons, felt shapes and fabric trims such as lace or ribbon, on a headband in the same manner as the flowers.

• Always use caution with a hot glue gun. Even low-temperature hot glue guns are capable of causing uncomfortable burns.