DIY: Hair Flowers

At my last job, one of my bosses was a woman who played in a band, dressed in a rockabilly style, and wore flowers in her hair every day – which was a bummer for me because in addition to also leaning towards rockabilly attire, flower clips are one of my favorite “I-am-way-too-busy-for-this-just-grab-a-clip” simple solution to doing something with my hair. But you can’t be rocking the same accessories as your boss. That is just not on.

Fortunately, I have a new job, which means I can bust out the flower clips whenever I feel like it – and you can too. Whipping up a quick hair flower is cheap and super easy, and there are several versions to choose from.
The simplest way to go about this is to glue fabric flowers to an alligator clip, a barrette, an elastic hairband, or a hair comb; however you can also use fake flowers. First you’ll want to ditch the fake stem by pulling the petals off.

Arrange them as you like then sew them together with a needle and thread. A sparkly button sewn in the center or some flowers sew on the side help kick it up a notch. Flowers can also get hot glue gunned onto bobby pins, which is super elegant looking.

If fake flowers aren’t quite your thing, try making your own flower out of patterned fabric. It’s easy to make this understated version, just cut out several circles from your fabric and fold them into triangles. Then sew the triangles into a circular form and cover a button in fabric to sew in the center.

You can use a variety of fabric here for different effects – tulle, while a bit difficult to work with, makes a dreamy romantic hair flower, lace can be pinched and sewn to create an abstract flower, and felt can cut into strips and folded to resemble petals or cut from one piece and sewn into a flower. Fabrics can also be sewn in layers to enhance different effects.

Flowers can also be made from ribbons; just fold over a short length of ribbon and sew the end shut. When you have several ribbon petals, arrange them in a row and sew into a line then pull the petals into a circle shape and sew shut. These can be made small enough to sew onto a standard size hair elastic.

If that all sounds like too much sewing, try these flower pom poms which just involve gluing fabric circles onto a base until they’re the desired size. Or, you can simply safety pin a flower onto an elastic headband (although this does tend to flop around some).

Images courtesy FoodWineandModPodge.com, DIY.Weddingbee.com, PrudentBaby.com, DIY.Weddingbee.com, RockMyWedding.co.uk, and TreyandLucy.blogspot.com