Baby Hair Flowers

Back in February 2011 I found out I was pregnant. I had no idea what I was having yet, but I secretly (and not so secretly) hoped I would have a girl. I was convinced I would have a little boy but went a head and decided to mess around with making little flower hairclips for baby girls anyway. The school that I taught at was going to be having a craft fair anyway, and I figured I could sell them there even if I didn't end up with a girl. Lucky for me I was able to sell some and have a baby girl to wear them! After reading and watching almost every hair clip and hair flower tutorial I could find I went to the craft store, bought some teal fabric (I think it was a nylon fabric. It needs to be one that can melt, not burn.) and some jewels and buttons and whipped out these babies...

They were a little bit time consuming, but not too difficult. All you need is fabric that will melt, a hot glue gun, a pen, scissors thick paper and a flower shaped template. I made and then printed out this flower template in approximately 1/4 to 1/2 inch increments starting with 3 1/2 inches as my largest and 1 inch as my smallest.  You could do this with any flower shape you want. I have since done some flowers with just 5 petals that are really pretty and some that I have cut free form and some that are just circles. They all turn out pretty, it is just personal preference. Here is a copy of the template I made.

After I printed and then cut out my templates on a thick card stock I chose which petal sizes I wanted for each flower and traced them on my fabric. I just used a regular old black pen that I had lying in my desk. I tried to use my sewing chalk and then a pencil to trace the templates, but they just didn't quite work, so I used gold old fashioned ink and it did the trick. Just make sure that when you are cutting your flowers out of the fabric that you make your cuts inside the pen line, that way you wont have any little black or blue bits left on your finished flower. For some flowers I would use 2 petals of each size and stagger them and others I would use one petal in each size. I like the way both of them look. Once again, personal preference.

Once all of your petals are cut out of the fabric the fun part begins. This is the point where being a little bit of a pyro makes things enjoyable. You need to run the edges of each of your petals over a flame to seal the edges and keep them from fraying as well as give the edge of the petal a slight curl. This part takes a little practice. If you hold the edge of the fabric for too long it will shrivel up into an unusable mass. If you don't do it long enough it will start to fray  and your flower will slowly unravel while it is in your (or your childs) hair. I have had both happen, so be careful.

Once all of the edges have been sealed and curled you can either take the time to sew them or whip out the hot glue gun and just put a little dab of glue in the center of each petal and stack them and turn them until you like the way your flower looks. Then glue (or sew) some kind of a center into place. I have used buttons, beads and gemstones for this part, as well as scrap booking embellishments and they all work great! It is just a matter of what you can find and what looks cute to you. 

Once your flower is done you can either hot glue a little hair clip to the back of your flower or you can attach it to a bobby pin, or to clothes or a headband, or a bag or shoes. They are so versatile, you can use them anywhere. I used alligator clips and made a bunch of interchangeable ones for my baby girl. they can be clipped onto any of her headbands or hats and even pinned to her onesies. Then when she finally has some hair they can clip right into her hair. I love these little flowers and hope you found my brief tutorial in how to make them helpful.

Here is the final product on my pretty little babies head.