In celebration of the new Christopher Robin movie (which I highly recommend you go see, because it is adorable and nostalgic and excellent!), I took a break from writing my latest book to do a little upcycled crafting. Here is a simple way to make a cute hair clip, inspired by everyone’s favorite bear of very little brain.
For this tutorial, I roughly based my design off of the Disney emoji version of Pooh (I say “roughly” to excuse the fact that my shape is not quite perfect):
You can use this basic technique to make pretty much any character/design/whatever you want. Use these basic steps and your own creativity to make some super cute hair clips for every occasion!
Supplies:
Yellow scrap fabric (I used clippings from an old shirt which I also used for the Pikachu bow)
Scissors
Hot glue gun and hot glue
Black permanent marker/paint
Scrap cardboard (I used a cracker box)
Hair clip
Any color scrap fabric
1. Draw out your basic shape. If you aren’t comfortable doing this free-hand, you can trace the image on a piece of paper, cut it out, then trace it onto the fabric. You can also clip images out of coloring books or magazines to trace. I did free-hand, because I’m a little bit lazy (and only had a few hours before I had to leave to go see the movie).
2. Cut out the design. Leave a little bit of extra on the outside of the design on each side. You will fold this over in the next step to prevent fraying.
3. Using hot glue, fold the extra edges over the marker lines and glue in place to create clean edges and prevent any fraying.
4. Now begin to add your details. With the marker/paint, add the nose. I started with this since it is pretty much right in the middle of the face. This made it easy to make sure everything else lined up.
4. Add in two ovals for the eyes.
6. Add in the smile and eyebrows. You can also trim some of the corners on the face to make them smoother. Just cut off a tiny bit as to not undo all of your hard hot-gluing work.
7. Now trace the design onto a scrap piece of cardboard. (If there is any wording on the cardboard that you don’t want to show, have it facing up so it is covered by the fabric.)
8. Cut out the cardboard shape and make sure it lines up with your cloth design.
9. Hot glue the fabric to the cardboard.
To add the removable clip:
10. Take a strip of scrap fabric- color does not matter.
11. Fold one edge (hot dog style) into the middle of the strip and secure with hot glue.
12. Do the same with the other side.
13. Trim the short edges and grab a hair clip.
14. Put the strip into the hair clip then create a loop by wrapping the strip around the top of the clip. Hot glue the ends of the loop together and cut off any extra.
15. Hot glue the loop to the back of the design. This way you can remove the hair clip and use it on other designs/bows so you don’t have to buy a million hair clips. I have five that I rotate between all of my designs.
16. Put your clip on and go see Christopher Robin immediately.
