Felt Hair Accessories

Lately I've discovered the joys of working with felt. It doesn't fray and you don't need to finish any edges. Plus, its weight gives it enough stiffness to make things that wouldn't work with flimsier fabrics. I've been getting inspiration from all over the web and finally decided to try making some felt hair accessories. I'm thrilled with the way they turned out. I mentioned the adorable red double box fold flower hair clip previously. I've been checking out ribbon sculpture tutorials lately and plan to try making all kinds of adorable designs, but first I need to get a good stock of ribbon to work with, so that should be coming up in the coming weeks. But for this felt clip, I used an idea I saw for making a lollipop ribbon sculpture, and made it out of green and navy blue felt strips I cut out myself. I like the chunkiness of it, and I used a filmy gauzy type of white fabric (as opposed to the tulle used in the tutorial) to make a wrapper for my sucker. I brushed clear nail polish on the edges of this fabric to keep it from fraying, though I have read of a product called Fray Chek that is meant for just such a purpose. But nail polish is what I had around the house so that's what  I used.  I wrapped a trimmed toothpick in a white felt strip for the stick. Then I glued the lollipop to an alligator clip I had covered with more of the green felt. I love that the felt turned the simple design into something that was a big and showy accessory that really catches your attention without being the ubiquitous enormous flower or bow on a little one's head. Sweet enough to eat!  I plan on doing the wrapped candy design in the video also at some point.
Another clip I made was loosely based off of this tutorial for felt clips from Make it and Love it, one of my favorite crafty sites that I check out often. A lot of her projects are way out of my league, but she has a knack for writing awesome clear easy-to-follow tutorials and really helps you understand what to do. I loved the little birdie design, so I used a plain little snap clip and then did what I do best: I personalized the little birdie theme. I made my clip in navy blue felt, and made the bird outline out of red felt. Full disclosure: I was actually trying to do something else which didn't turn out good at all and serendipitously found this little bird-shaped scrap left on the table from that attempt. I skipped the wing and feet detail - too complicated for me - and used a sharpie marker to add a little eye and beak. Cutest of all, in my opinion, I covered just the top of a large white button with a little circle of navy and white windowpane checked fabric, using my trusty glue gun of course. It developed a little frayed edge that I decided I love, and the glue underneath keeps it from fraying any further. Then I glued the button to the center of the clip as opposed to the edge like in the tutorial, and stuck Birdie on top of that. I originally wanted to sew the seams around the edge to finish it like Ashley did, but in the end it was too difficult, especially sewing through all of that glue, so I skipped that part. I love the way the clippie looks. I'm cooking tons of ideas for other things to do with felt.
Update: Guess what? I ended up uploading some pics of some of the clips I had made to share with a relative via email, so now that I have 'em on the computer, you get to see them too! Sorry for the lousy photography skills, it's another thing I have to learn!

Aren't they cute?