Animal Friends Hair Clips - Tutorial

Here is some cuteness I thought I'd share. Anna is finally enjoying wearing hair clips so I made her some little animal friends to wear. She has hair that is in between - too short for a pony tail but too long around the face, so clips are perfect for her right now.

You will need:

Metal prong hair clips (I bought a box of 50 on ebay for a few dollars)

grosgrain ribbon (dollar store)

fabric glue

cigarette lighter / matches

felt scraps

craft googly eyes (dollar store)

scissors

scrap paper

pencil and thin tipped black marker

Using your hair clips as a size guide, sketch a couple of basic animal shapes on your scrap paper to use as templates. Once you are happy with them, cut them out. Google images of 'animal silhouettes' are handy if you are worried about your drawing skills!

Use your template and cut your basic animal shapes out of the felt.

 

Once you have cut your basic animal shapes, cut any additional pieces you need - eg. for the pig I cut a small circle for the snout, for the owl I cut some wings and a small triangle for a beak.

Glue extra felt pieces and googly eyes with fabric glue.

How cute are they looking? Use your black marker to add any further details - I gave the whale a smile and the pig a couple of nostrils on his snout.

 

Put your animals aside, and grab your hair clips and ribbon. To stop the ends of the ribbon from fraying, gently seal it with your cigarette lighter or a match.

Put a thin line of glue down the length of your ribbon (not too much - you don't want it too ooze out the edges) and glue the ribbon starting from the inside of the clip.

Glue your ribbon around the clip and finish on the inside of the other prong. It should look like this:

Once the glue on the hair clip is dry, attach your animals. You will have some very cute clips that look like this:

There are heaps of different animals you could make - birds, cats and fish were other ones I considered as they are relatively easy shapes. Whatever your little girl's favourite is! The ribbon covered clip is a great base for any kind of decorations, I also use buttons and little fabric yo-yos.

Place it in their hair and away you go!

If you make some I'd love to see them - please share a picture over at my Flickr Group!