DIY Hair Toys

Hair toys and a tomatillo.

OK, so you all know the drastic fate of my hair toy from DonnaElla. It committed floral suicide on I-65 North. A moment of silence please for the dearly departed. *sniff*

Since I simply couldn't face more time on Etsy in a seemingly desperate search for a new hair toy, I decided to DIY my hair toy. It's actually turning out OK! I started the process by refusing to use hot glue and sewing only. However, the thickness of some of the layers was not allowing me to pull the thread tight enough to keep the little pearls from rolling around.

You can see in these pictures how they look a little sad. I put the center pearl on top of a sequin and that just wasn't helping the situation either. I cut it all off and went and bought some "bling" glue from JoAnn's. It worked like a charm. I still hate hot glue.

I decided to make my MOH a matching hair toy since this wasn't so hard. When I was out buying bling glue, I figured I could get some black flowers to match my MOH's black dress. Black flowers. Yeah, I said it and no, they do not exist - at least not at happy-happy JoAnn's. I really didn't think that through now, did I? What to do? Buy some cheap-ass fabric dye and dye the petals. Yes, that is what I did and it was easy-peasy-japoneasy. I bought fabric dye for synthetic material for like $3.99 (of course I had a coupon - duh) and the job was done in a little over an hour. You have to put the dye in an enamel or stainless steel pot and simmer the fabric for an hour. You also have to be really careful with the dye because that crap will get everywhere if you're not careful. I was super careful and still managed to spill.

Once I dumped all the dye out, I put the petals on top of one of those mesh metal splash guard kitchen thingies to dry over the sink.

I let the petals dry all day and then just played with them a little to get them stacked right.

I've got the same center icon of silver and pearls to sew in the middle of this flower. Once I get that done, I'll share the final results. I'm making a second smaller flowers for myself (because one just isn't enough) and I need to figure out the best way to add the alligator clip to the back. I have a couple of these kinds of flowers already (store bought) and I'm referencing them for the best method. Stay tuned for the final results!