My whole life I have always been a very frugal, and crafty person. I could take magazines, and make beads, turn an old shirt into a doll outfit-the list goes on. Roughly five years ago when I had my first daughter I was so excited about putting her in dresses, and styling her hair that I could not wait to buy her some pretty bows & hair flowers. After a good search online, and in stores I came to the conclusion that if my little girl was going to have matching hair accessories I’d have to make them myself because there was no way I could afford to spend between $6-$15 dollars on them! Multiplying that cost by the number of dresses and pretty outfits she has would equal one very broke mommy!
After several trips to craft stores I realized that it would be cheaper for me to buy ribbon, and full stem artificial flowers to make my own hair accessories. After several trial and error bows, and flowers I was finally able to master the art of homemade hair goodies. I specialize in making my girl’s hair clippies, and flowers. I will make another post on how to make hair clippies at a later date because today is all about the flower.
As I mentioned I found it to be in my best interest to buy full stem flowers at stores like Michael’s when they are on sale. I really love daisies, and Gerberas so those are what I usually use. Sure, I could buy already clipped almost ready to assemble flowers, but you are paying for the convenience so it is cheaper to just buy the stems that you like. I have made my daughter over 20 different hair flowers, and have never spent over $1.50 total on each one! Using 40% off coupons, and matching them to floral deals yields the best deals!
Ok so now onto the construction part. Below are the materials you will need:
A clean surface, and hands
A glue stick (costs pennies)
A hot glue gun (anywhere between $4.95 and up * a good investment)
Floral Stems of your choice (price varies)
A sharp Pair of scissors (be careful)
An alligator Clip (costs pennies when bought in bulk-I buy mine online)
Embellishments for the center, or you could just use the original flower middle. (You can find gems and such at crafts stores-remember to use your coupons)
Step 1-Put a Glue stick in your glue gun, and let it heat up on a safe area.
Step 2-Gentle clip the flower off the stem as close to the backing as possible
Step 3- Carefully pull apart each flower layer (there may be up to 10)
Step 4- Starting with the largest petal place a small amount of hot glue in the center-*Do not use the plastic flower backing you can discard that!
Step 5-Repeat the above step gluing each layer from largest to smallest on top of one another
Step 6- After you entire flower is glued decide what you want in the middle-maybe the original center, or a rhinestone
Step 7- Your Flower is now complete -you may now glue it onto the alligator clip. Put some glue on the back of the flower, and firmly press it onto the clip
Step 8- Make sure it is held together strongly, now stand back, and admire your creation.
**This may seem like a lot of work, but it only takes about 2 minutes to complete, and the choices, and color/style options are endless
You could also turn these into magnets, & brooches.Check out this frugal tip and more on the SavvySavingCouple blog!
My cousin and I used to make flower clips when we were little and then sell them down the block.
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