Valentine hair clips

Ro and Ree are pretty creative little gals, and they adore bringing things to share with their class. So I thought they’d get a kick out of making Valentine hair clips for their classmates. I was only partially right...

They loved the idea of making the hair clips, and really got into choosing colors for each friend and putting the hearts in order with coordinating buttons. But then they each sewed on one button – yes ONE -- and figured they were done. That left me to finish assembling and gluing all the rest of the hair clips on my own. Hm.

Oh well, they’re done now, and didn’t actually take that long to do (especially once I abandoned any notion of sewing and assembled them solely with the hot glue gun). And I know Ro and Ree’s little friends will like them.

If you want to make your own Valentine’s Day hair clips, here’s the scoop.

Materials: (note that it costs about the same to make one clip as a dozen, so you might as well make a few):

- Hairclips (I use the Conair roller set clips that you can find in any drugstore). They’re $2 to $3 a package.

- Hot glue gun and glue sticks.

- Ribbon (I got a 12-yard roll of plain white grosgrain ribbon at Michael’s for $2).

- Felt in various Valentine colors. I used red, white, gray, light purple, dark purple, light pink, and dark pink.

- Buttons (I had a bunch of misfits hanging around the house, so I just used what was on hand).

- Scissors (a tiny pair of super-sharp scissors and a big pair of pinking shears).

- White thread (if you’re going to sew the buttons on).

Directions:

1. Cut out three hearts (big, medium, small) for your templates. I printed the below images on a half of a manila folder so I could cut thick templates. The biggest heart is about 2 1/4 inches across. (click the below image to open in a new window and print)

2. Cut three different colors of felt using your templates. I used the pinking shears to cut the medium heart because I kind of liked the jaggedy line (it was also more forgiving, so I could cut it faster). I don’t trace patterns, by the way, just hold my template shape against the material and cut around it.

3. Sew a small button onto the smallest heart (or hot glue it if you’re tired), then glue the three hearts together.

My eyesight is so bad now that I’m (cough cough) a bit over forty, that the only way I can thread a needle is using one of these nifty threaders. If you don’t have one, I highly recommend them.

4. Cut a piece of ribbon to about 4 1/2 inches and run the ends through a flame really quickly so they won’t ravel.

5. Hot glue the ribbon around the bottom prongs and up over the top of the clasp.

6. Now glue the clip to the back of your heart (the ribbon side gets glued to the clip). I don’t have a problem with these slipping out of the girls’ hair – probably because they’re so light and the felt clings to the hair.

So, the girls in the class are done now. Does anyone have any ideas for handmade Valentine gifts for the boys? We just can’t come up with anything.