Faux Leather Crafts: Star Headband Tutorial

Today's vegan leather craft project? Making a star headband from gorgeous metallic leather!

 
Add lots of stars to make a super star crown, or just add a couple of stars for a bit of subtle glamour. I think this headband would also be fab made from glitter felt.

This tutorial originally appeared on the Village Haberdashery's blog and was created using synthetic leather and other craft supplies from their shop.

You will need:

- The star templates (follow the link to view and download the PDF)
- Some synthetic leather
- Coordinating felt (I used black to match the headband) 
- A plastic headband
- Craft glue
- Sewing scissors
- An air-erasable fabric marker pen or an ordinary felt tip pen
- A glue gun and glue
- A heatproof mat for the glue gun
- Newspaper or scrap paper to protect your workspace

To make the headband: 

Use the templates provided to cut out as many stars as you want – I cut one large star and four small stars. Trace the star shapes onto the back of the leather using a pen then cut them out with sewing scissors.

Cut pieces of felt slightly bigger than each star. Turn the stars over and place them on some newspaper or scrap paper. One by one, cover the back of each star with a layer of craft glue and then firmly press a piece of felt on top covering the star completely. Turn the felt and attached stars over and set them aside to dry.

Once the glue has completely dried cut away the excess felt, leaving stars which are leather on one side and felt on the other.

Use a glue gun to stick the stars to a headband. Add a line of glue down the centre of one of the stars, on the felt side. Carefully press the star into position on the headband, holding it in place until the glue has dried enough to stick it firmly. Repeat to add the rest of the stars

IMPORTANT: take care when working with the glue gun as the glue gets very hot! Always place it on a heat-proof mat when not in use, and use newspaper or other scrap paper to protect your workspace. Work slowly, squeezing the gun with care to control the amount of glue you’re using and keeping your fingers out of the way of the hot glue.

Want to make more fun things from faux leather? Try my tutorials for making a lightning bolt brooch, a mini covered notebook, and a geometric necklace.


This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to make as many headbands as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow a couple of photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to this page on my blog, and do not reproduce my entire tutorial / share my templates on your site. Thanks!

Enjoyed this free tutorial? Buy me a "coffee" and help support my blog!


P.S. Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Visit my shop to buy my printable PDF sewing patterns:

Crafting With Felt Flowers: Floral Crown Tutorial

Sew a pretty felt flower crown or headband!

Throughout this week I'm sharing ideas for crafting with felt flowers, and ways to re-use the flower templates from my April Felt Flowers Wreath tutorial. Today I'll show you how to make a floral crown that's perfect for parties, festivals or even weddings.

This tutorial was originally designed for The Village Haberdashery's blog and was created using felt and other craft supplies from their shop.

You will need:

- The flower templates from my April wreath tutorial
- Wool felt in assorted colours
- Embroidery thread to match the felt
- 1 metre ribbon
- Sewing needles and pins
- Sewing scissors or embroidery scissors (these are great for cutting out detailed felt shapes!)

To make the floral crown:

Use the flower templates to cut out the flower pieces from felt (see step 1 of the wreath tutorial - I’ve used different colours to make the crown, but you’ll need the same quantities as listed to create seven flowers). Arrange the pieces, as shown.

Stitch the flowers with half strands of contrasting embroidery thread (so for six-stranded embroidery thread just use three strands), sewing radiating stitches from the centre of each flower. I stitched nine stitches for each of the larger flowers, and six for the smaller flowers. If you like you can also add some extra stitched details to decorate the flowers, as I did. For extra decoration you could add buttons, beads or sequins to the flower centres.

Cut a metre long piece of ribbon, cutting the ends at an angle to help prevent fraying. Pin the flowers onto the ribbon starting with the largest flowers in the centre then working outwards.

Sew the ribbon to the back of the flowers, using running or whip stitch in matching sewing thread. Remove the pins as you sew and take care to sew into the felt but not through it, so your stitching won’t show at the front of the crown.

This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to make as many flower crowns as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow a couple of photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to this page on my blog, and do not reproduce my entire tutorial / share my templates on your site. Thanks!

Enjoyed this free tutorial? Buy me a "coffee" and help support my blog!


P.S. Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Visit my shop to buy my printable PDF sewing patterns:

DIY Fantastic Festival Hairbands Tutorial

Today I'm sharing a fun and easy DIY project: decorating plastic Alice bands!

 

 

ADVERTISEMENT: This tutorial is sponsored by Bostik, and is part of a series of crafty projects I'm creating to promote their range of adhesives. Click here to see all the posts in the series!

This post is actually the start of a whole week of Bostik-themed craftiness here on my blog. I'll be sharing creative ideas using all these different products:

I'll be using the PVA Glue, Glu Dots, Micro Dots and Blu Tack later in the week (on Wednesday and Friday), but today I'm getting crafty with Bostik's Power Repair glue.

According to the packaging, Bostik Power Repair Ultimate Strength Glue "provides a long lasting bond for just about anything - glass, wood, stone, metal, leather, rubber, plastics, ceramics and much more!" It "resists knocks and drops, is waterproof and works in extreme temperatures."

It's ideal for small repairs around the house, basically, but did I want to use it to repair something around the house? No I did not. I wanted to use it to make something fun and joyful and to test it out on a project that I'd normally use a glue gun for because I'm always interested in alternatives to worrying that I'm going to burn myself with hot glue.

So, I decided to decorate some plain plastic Alice bands and turn them into fun accessories to wear to parties, gigs, or festivals this summer.

 
To make your own headband, you'll need a plain plastic band to use as your base (the wide plastic ones are particularly great as they give you a big flat surface to glue stuff to), something fun to stick on them, and some Bostik Power Repair glue or other suitable strong glue.

I decorated the narrow hairband with bright felt balls, and the wide hairband with a trio of mini rubber ducks. Rubber ducks are pretty cute and the colours are fab, but I also love the idea of wearing rubber ducks in your hair to a festival where the forecast is for lots of rain! The Power Repair glue is waterproof, so you won't need to worry about the ducks sliding off your head during a downpour.

I applied the glue to the bottom of one of the ducks and the top of the wide headband using the narrow nozzle on the glue (you can also unscrew the whole cap if you're sticking something larger), then held them together for a few minutes.

The glue is "repositionable for up to 3 minutes" which means you don't have that OH NO I STUCK IT IN THE WRONG PLACE ARGH moment that so often happens when working with a glue gun but it does mean you may need to be patient while the glue sets a little. If you were sticking something flat on top of something else flat you could just leave them both sitting there but my duck would definitely have slid off the curved headband if I'd not held it in place.

The glue is quite a thick gel and applies easily without dripping, which is great. The packaging also boasts that it "won't glue your fingers together" which is always EXCELLENT news when working with strong glue (I always end up getting glue on my fingers no matter how carefully I work). 

I then left the headband propped up (between two small wooden boxes) for a while to give the glue a chance to set some more (it fully sets after two hours and will reach full strength after 24 hours).

After about 20 minutes I nudged the duck gently and was happy with how it was holding in place so I repeated the process to add the other two ducks, each time propping the headband up so the latest duck was sitting as horizontal as possible so it wouldn't slide down the curved band.

 

I used the same method for adding the felt balls to the narrow headband, just adding less glue and only waiting about 10 or 15 minutes for the glue to have taken hold. (I didn't time this exactly, just wandered off to get a few other things done while I was waiting so you may find you can add the next item to your headband much quicker than this!)

 

And that's it! Told you it was easy. Now all you need to do is go try on your hairband(s) and take some selfies :)

DISCLOSURE: this post is sponsored by Bostik, who also provided the Power Repair I used to make the headbands.

P.S. Fancy some more free crafty goodness? Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Guest Post: Ribbon Hairband Tutorial

Thanks to lots of my lovely blog readers, I've got lots of fun guest posts scheduled for the upcoming weeks - hurrah :)

(I still owe a few people an email, but hopefully I will have got back to everyone by the end of the weekend - please bear with me!)

First up: a fab no-sew hairband tutorial, from Emma McCann who originally designed it for the Brighton Craft Guerilla blog.
Emma says.... "I'm a freelance illustrator, but a crazy-keen crafter, too. I'll try my hand at anything, but I particularly love screenprinting, knitting, crochet, embroidery, sewing and baking. I try to blog as often as I can about illustration, crafting, eating large amounts of tea and cake and many other random things! For just over a year, two friends and I have been running Brighton Craft Guerrilla which is part of the larger Craft Guerrilla group. We use the Brighton Craft Guerrilla blog to document our crafty shenanigans and post up anything interesting we find on our travels."

Hello all. This is a really easy-peasy guide to making your own bow that you can add to a hairband for instant glamour, or attach to a clip or a pin to give any outfit a little bit of va-va-voom. What makes it so easy is there are no real measurements involved, other than you need about 1.5m of ribbon, and no sewing. All you need is:

- 1.5m-ish of ribbon. I used a 22mm wide grosgrain ribbon, which I think works better than normal, silky ribbon as it is stiffer and has more weight to it.
- Scissors.
- Glue. I use Guterman HT2 Textile Glue. This stuff is a real craft-box staple as, not only is it super-strong, it will stick absolutely anything. I use it for gluing clip frames onto purses and it's just fab.
- A hairband of your choice. The selection at Claire's Accessories is pretty wide and has the bonus of being inexpensive.

What You Do:

Step 1: Decide how many loops you would like to your bow. I went for four, with an extra piece to wrap around the middle. Cut your ribbon - as many loops as you want, plus one extra – into strips, each one slightly smaller than the one before it; check out my photo:

Step 2: Glue the ends of each strip, bar the smallest, together so you have a collection of gradually decreasing loops.

Step 3: Squish the centre of each loop into itself and secure with a blob of glue on the inside.

Step 4: Layer your squashed loops up on top of each other with largest at the bottom up to smallest on the top, and secure together with a dab of glue between the flat area of each one. It's best to leave it to dry for 15 minutes or so before you continue.

Step 5: After you've let the glue dry for a bit, take your remaining piece of ribbon and glue it at a right angle to the bow on the bottom side of the largest loop.

Step 6: Wrap the ribbon around the centre of the bow once. Then grab your hairband and position the bow on top. Now wrap the ribbon around both the bow and the hairband. This will create a slight loop on the bottom which is what makes your bow so flexible in its style. You may not need the whole length of the ribbon, but wrap it around at least twice to make it nice and secure.

Step 7: Cut the end of the ribbon off at an angle to prevent fraying, and glue to the underside of the bow.

Step 8: Ta-da! A fabulous hairband. Leave it to dry for about half an hour (or over night would be ideal, just to be on the safe side) and away you go.

You'll see that looping the ribbon around the band means it's not fixed to it in any way, so you can move it up and down the band as you wish for different looks, or slide it off completely and attach to a pin for a fantastic brooch that would look amazing pinned at the neck of a buttoned cardi. Experiment with different ribbon thicknesses and lengths and the number of loops for whole new looks.
Go out and impress!

-------

You can follow Emma's adventures in illustration and crafting over on her blog, Illustration, The Universe and Everything
 
Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Simple Pleasures

I've been making some Christmas decorations this weekend - lovely traditional paper chains plus some of these ornaments, all from gorgeous sugar paper (construction paper). I love this sort of absorbing crafty task - perfect for winter afternoons watching Poirot and other good stuff on the telly - and I'm gradually building up quite an explosion of colour to use in my holiday decor!

In other news, I was really chuffed to learn that one of my bow hairbands is featured in the current issue of Crea Magazine (through one of my stockists, Abi Loves). How cute is that picture?

How To: Make a Fun Pompom Headband

Today I was overcome by a sudden urge to make a pompom headband... and I had so much fun I thought you might like to make one too! (pompoms are very trendy, apparently)

 

Making pompoms is dead easy - there's a great tutorial HERE that explains it all very clearly if you need a refresher.

 

I used a lovely chunky yarn made up of a mix of colours for a soft, mottled look to my pompom, and used a roll of sellotape as the template for my card circles (making my pompom quite large). You can of course use any colour yarn you like, and make your pompoms as large or small as you fancy (a selection of different sizes/colours would look pretty fab together).

Make sure not to trim the strands used for tying the pompom together - you'll need these to help you attach
the pompom to the headband later.

  

Using six long strands of matching yarn and plaiting with two strands at a time, make a thick plait long enough to tie around your head easily. Knot the plait tightly at each end and trim any excess yarn.

Using the two strands hanging from your pompom, tie it onto the headband and try it on in front of a mirror so you can work out where you'd like the pompom to sit. When you've decided, use the pompom strands and a darning needle to sew the pompom securely in place, knotting any loose ends and trimming them neatly.

 

 

Et voila, a fun pompom headband!

Sew your pompom onto a smaller plaited band to make an awesome ponytail bobble:

 

Or maybe wear your pompom as a necklace?

 

Please feel free to borrow photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to the original source, and do not reproduce my entire tutorial on your site. Thanks!

Enjoyed this free tutorial? Buy me a "coffee" and help support my blog!


Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Visit my shop to buy my printable PDF sewing patterns: