Leather Headband

I have a cute friend who is always wearing headbands. Since I chopped 11 inches off my hair on Halloween I've been hesitant to wear hair accessories as I think they look silly on me. However, my hair has grown a couple inches since then and I can almost pull it back without looking grungy. Every time I see this cute friend in her cute headbands I think I ought to try wearing more accessories.

So I drew up a pattern and went for it. I made mine 18 inches long and tapered it from 2 inches wide at the center 6 inches to 1 inch wide at the sides. Confused? You can print my pattern here:

Micha Muses Leather Headband Pattern

About 8 years ago, I bought this purse and have loved it. Recently I've switched to something more colorful and this was sitting in the donation bag.

I loved the simplicity of it, and the fact that I could fit my Canon Rebel into it when we'd go to places. At first I hoped to use a plain strip of leather but because of the seams I didn't have a space big enough to do that. So I cut out the headband piece running across the seams and kept that detail which gave me a strip like this.

I completely admit to freaking out both when I cut into the purse I had loved and when I saw the curly-ness of the leather strip. But I went with it anyway.

Wrapping it around my head I estimated how long I'd want the elastic to be. I went with 4.5 inches. After we stitch it on it will be about an inch shorter and I didn't want the headband to fit too snug.

Overlap the elastic on the inside edge of the headband about 1/4 inch and stitch a line across the entire width to keep it in place.

Fold the Leather up so the end of the elastic is held inside.

Stitch a line across the open edge of the fold to hold it all in place. Great! Now stitch close to the bottom edge to keep it in place there.

That's all well and good, but lets stitch over it about 5 more times just because I'm paranoid about things laying flat and elastic fraying... and I like the look of multiple rows of imperfect stitching. Do the same to thing attaching the elastic to the other end of the headband and you should have something that looks like this:

AND... that's it. I chose to leave the cut edges of the leather as is. It won't fray and isn't bulky.

Verdict? Since the hubs told me I looked cute the first time I wore it, I think it's a winner.

Button and Feather Clips

I saw this link on Pinterest that I flipped over right away. I pinned it at bedtime, and by 9:00 the next morning it had been repinned 22 times, which means that by now this is definitely not a unique idea. It also means that a fire was lit under my bum to get on it and make some quickly before the trend passes. Since I don't wear bobby pins with great success I decided to make some on clips instead. I've come up with three different approaches to this look and can't decide which ones I like the best.

These have been so much fun I'm thinking of using this as a craft for my daughter's upcoming birthday party.

This first style uses metal clips that I found in the ribbon section at Walmart, though I hate to admit to shopping there. They are intended for making bridal accessories, but they are cheap and I am frugal when it comes to my crafting. The big difference with this one is that the button is at the tip of the clip rather than the hinge. It feels backwards, but I've found that we wear this style more than the others. Perhaps because of the awesome black and white bling one in the middle. (Click the pic to see it larger and read the instructions).

On style 2 I put the bottons on the hinged end of the barrette. It feels more "logical" this way, yet I just don't like it quite as well. We've also found that the feathers curling up are fun in my daughter's hair, but for my hair I prefer the feathers curling down. Who'd have thought? 

The third style is the bobby pin style just like what I pinned and the original source can be found here. I found it easier to glue the feathers to the button first rather than the piece of felt.

Side by side the three styles of feather clips. I really didn't expect to love the white feathers but they are so much fun! The red buttons are for my daughters for Valentine's Day. Do you think they will like them? If you make some leave me a message and link so I can see. I'd love to see yours!