DIY from scrap to hair clip!

Hello, how have you been? It's the dog days of summer and it's just winding down now. Hot, humid and cooler in the evenings. The pets want to nap all day and I don't blame them!

What I have today is a DIY project from scraps you might have in your craft supplies. Every now and then we buy something that had a big flower, button or decoration on it. So I remove these and set them aside for some later use. I had a thrifted top that had some large decoration in fabric, I took one off. I decided it would make a great hair clip and almost resemble a fascinator.

scrap fabric and old earring

So above is the scrap piece from the thrifted top. It's almost like a deconstructed flower with pretty lace, raw edges and quite large. I wanted to add to this and again picked through some of my craft supplies. I found an old clip-on earring with no mate. I used some pliers to remove the earring from it's backing and laid them out. I also had an old mis-match barrette and that is what we will be using for this.

the back of the scrap piece we will turn into a hair clip

Now, before we decorate our scrap piece we need to make a back for it and attach the barrette. Turn your scrap piece upside down, so the back is facing up. Trace around the shape roughly and cut it out. 

cut out felt piece

this part will clip to your hair

I cut a small slit in the felt to allow part of the hair barrette to slip in (see above). This just helps hide it from view and lets you stitch it to the felt piece. 

Turn your felt piece over and stitch the barrette to the felt. I simply stitched around the metal to make sure it's secure. If you can not stitch your barrette to your felt, you can use glue. I would suggest a glue for metal or plastic and lets you attach it to felt. A very good crafting glue for many types or material is E6000. It can be used on metal, jewelry, fabric and plastics. 

now for the added decoration!

Once you have the felt attached (stitched or glued on) it's onto the next fun part! Take your decorative piece that you are going to be using. Remember I had that old earring I took apart? I took the beads and laid them out until I liked how they looked. I decided to stitch the beads to my fabric piece. If you are unable to attach decorations with thread you can always use that same glue I mentioned above (the E6000 or other fabric glue). 

You take your decorated piece, as mine is seen above (in the photo) and you will attach that felt backing to it. Now you can easily glue the felt backing (with the sewn/glued barrette) to your decorative piece. Be sure to let it dry well, often left to dry over night. 

You can repeat this for almost any number of materials! You can use tulle, netting, ole scraps of fabric and more. Play around, lay them out, glue or stitch and create something new!

finished piece

I hope you enjoyed this fun DIY project! I will certainly have more to come. But for now, I'm trying to cut a full length dress pattern and perhaps crochet some. Enjoy the end of the summer months friends!