I hate hot glue

I've never been big on bows. I think they look super cute on some kids, but they never seemed to go with my kid's personality. Plus, I just could never be bothered with them. However, lately my kid seems to prefer clips in her hair to ponytails, so I thought I may as well jazz them up a bit.

I recently saw this tutorial on how to make felt flowers and thought they'd make for cute hair clips. Super fast and easy and a great project to do in front of the TV. However, when it came time to glue them to the clips, I had nothing but trouble. Have I mentioned that I hate working with hot glue?

In the past, I'd covered some alligator clips with ribbon and again, had a helluva time getting the ribbon to stick properly. And even once I did get them on like I wanted, they ended up falling apart because E kept pulling them out of her hair and chewing on them. Ah, toddlers.

Anyways, after futzing with them for quite some time, here are two finished clips.

And a pic of E wearing the Halloween one.

The flower promptly fell off the clip about 30 seconds after I snapped the picture. I didn't even get that far with the red one. *sigh*

A friend told me I need a high-temp glue gun (I have low-temp). And that I have to be very very generous with the glue. I'm thinking I may find some other kind of adhesive because I've had it with the stupid glue gun.

My Rockin' Friday Night

That title is dripping with sarcasm, just in case you weren't sure.

Last night, after T got the child down to bed, he pretty much went to bed himself. This was at the very late hour of 8pm. So since I'm not 70 years old, and I still had some energy to burn, I decided to work on some projects.

I had originally intended to run out to the fabric store (yes, again) and pick up some elastic so I could make some matching shorts for the sundress I made last week, but I was disappointed to discover that they close at 8pm on Fridays. Odd, huh? Instead I ended up wandering around the nearby Dollar Tree and then onto Target, where I found some cheap packs of cute ribbon. So I decided to fire up the old glue gun and try again at making some hair clips for E.

I think they turned out pretty darn cute; way better than my first effort, one of which is at the bottom of the picture. I think I've almost got the hang of the glue gun now, so there's not as much glue glopped all over the edges. It's hard to get a small bead of glue on such a small object, and then get the ribbon on there before it hardens up.

These are also way cheaper to make than buy. The cheapest ones I've seen are sets of 2 pairs for $10 at Target, but usually they're like, $8 for ONE clip at places like Babystyle. I'm also not a fan of the overly frilly ones that I see in most places since it just isn't my or E's style. Is it nutty that a 1-year-old already has her own look and style? But I digress. The ribbon came in a pack of 6 different little spools, but of course, since I found them in the Dollar Spot, there's only like 18 inches on each spool. Still, I can make at least 2 clips out of each spool, so it's not a bad deal for a buck. And I'm realizing now that scrapbooking ribbon is the way to go. The designs tend to be more varied and funky then the standard fare you find in the hobby/fabric depts. I'm definitely going to make some more.

Almost forgot to mention: I realized after my first try that the fuzzy side of the velcro wasn't really working, so I tried the grippy side instead. They stick really well now, even in my super straight, slick hair that doesn't hold anything.

Late night madness

T went to bed early last night, so I took advantage of the time alone to go a little crazy with the craftiness. First off, I finished a sundress for my friend's daughter, Sofia. We like to joke that she and E are BFFs, and I love having other people to make stuff for.

I went a slightly different route with this one and actually cut the top instead of just folding it down, which I'm not sure if I like as much. But I thought that adding a seam would take away some of the stretchiness. I also used ribbon for the straps, so that I wouldn't have do any measuring. But I think they may be a little short. We'll see when I give it to her later today. I may have to make some adjustments.

I also made my very first hair clippies last night. I've had all the stuff to make bows & clips for a long time now, but I've just been too lazy to bust out the hot glue gun. Somehow, having a baby (well now I guess she's actually a toddler) roaming around is not very conducive to working with hot glue.

I have to say though, making these things was really not as easy as I thought it was going to be. I mean, glue ribbon to metal. Done, right? Well, I don't know if I have the wrong kind of glue gun (low temp vs. high temp), but it was really hard to get the ribbon on there before the glue hardened up and dried. So I spent a lot of time picking off gobs of dried glue. Bleh. Not the neatest job in the world (wow, I'm really noticing now how crooked the ribbon is), but for a first effort, I'm not going to beat myself up over it. They actually look better in the in person since they're teeny and farther away. Ha!


I figure I'll get better at it if I ever decide to make more. As it turns out, E's just not really a hairbow kind of girl. She needs something to keep the hair out of her face, so we'll see if these will fly. Oh, the white fuzzy stuff peeking out is the fuzzy part of a strip of velcro. I thought it might help them hold better since E's hair is a bit fine and a lot of clips just slide out.

Last, but no least, I also used my fancy new iron to give fusing plastic bags another go-round. My first effort (with the old, crappy iron) was...well terrible. I don't know if it was the iron or the type of bags I used, but it was all ugly and wrinkly and not very "fabric-y," if you know what I mean. This time, I decided to use all Target bags and it came out much better. Of course, I have no idea what I'm going to do with this just yet - maybe sew some kind of bag or pouch to put wet swimsuits in.


I am totally on a roll now! I'm going to try my hand at another type of dress tonight. And tomorrow I'm going to learn how to applique! Woohoo!