Felt Hair Clip

Little Imp has her daddy's hair.  Straight.  She also has a double crown.  No idea where that came from & no one on either side of the family is owning up to being the genetic culprit (not that a double crown is something you can hide very easily as far as I can tell!)  The up shot of this has many bad hair days already, even in her short life of only two years.

A few friends have started using little clips in their girl's hair and I figured it might be time we try the same to keep Little Imp's hair out of her eyes.   I found some of the silver snap type clips at Spotlight and raided my box of felt for some little scraps to cover the clips.  I'm sure there are other versions of the same type of thing I came up with to make these clips, but this is what resulted after an evening of snip, stitch and glue in front of the TV.

The husband came up with the idea of the leaf outline under the lady bug - he does have his uses!

Basic 'How To'
Essentially you are going to use two pieces of felt to cover the top part of the clip to make it pretty, while leaving the back 'snap' mechanism free to grip onto the hair.

• Using your hair clip as a guide, trace around the clip onto paper allowing an extra 3/4mm or so all the way around.  Cut this paper template out & use it to cut out 2 pieces of felt to the same size. 

• Next you need to cut a small slit into what will become the back piece of felt.  The red line on the paper template below shows roughly where I cut the slit, Snap open the clip and poke the back section of the clip through. 

• Then do whatever you like to decorate the top piece of felt.  Embroidery thread, buttons, more felt, beads.... imagine and sew!  If you're not keen on sewing then I'm sure glue would also work a treat, just leave any big embellishments to be glued on until after you have sewn the felt pieces together!

• Next, position the decorated top piece of felt over the bottom piece of felt, sandwiching the top section of the metal clip in between the felt. Align and then stitch the pieces of felt together.  For the Ladybug clip I used a simple back stitch all the way around & the Button Heart clip I used blanket stitch.  Again, use whatever suits your design.  Glue any big embellishments on (like my ladybug) and you are done.

view of back of clips once sewn together, 'snap' mechanism poking through bottom piece of felt