DIY easy headband makeover

I'm sure you've seen all the headband tutorials and posts out there in blogland lately. They are becoming super popular. I think there are so many tutorials in part because if you're the least bit crafty it can be difficult to rationalize spending money on something you could easily make yourself. I decided to make myself a few cute headbands to see how I could incorporate all the ideas I've seen lately.

I started with a cheap set of Goody gals pastel headbands (they were around $3 for 5 headbands) I got at Target. Each headband is 1/2" wide.

I wasn't crazy about the pastel colors so I used some navy double-fold bias tape that I had leftover from another project to cover the headband I was working on. I partially unfolded the tape before I began gluing it to the headband with Fabri-tac fabric glue. The widest part of the bias tape was exactly 1/2". I glued that to the top of the headband and then folded over the short unfolded side and glued it to the bottom.

By leaving the other side folded I had a nice finished edge to glue down that covered up everything perfectly.

Since I liked the versatility of the navy so much I decided to make my embellishment interchangeable. I added some heat and bond Velcro to both the headband and my ruffle. You're supposed to iron the Velcro from the back but I couldn't iron through the thickness of the headband. Instead, I covered the Velcro with a dish towel and ironed through that right onto the loop part. It worked out just fine. I ironed the Velcro on the ruffle from the other side like I was supposed to.

I used a scrap of fabric that I had left after taking in a shirt that is now too big (yay!). I cut a rectangle and then pinked each of the long sides so that I could leave them raw. I basted along each of my pinked edges and gathered the threads at the same time to make my little ruffle. I like that it has some nice texture and dimension without being a big puff on top of my head. Once I was happy with the size of the ruffle I sewed along my basting stitches and pulled them out. To finish the ruffle I folded each end under and glued it in place and then added the Velcro mentioned above.  The longest part of this project was waiting for the glue to dry.

Tip: I have a bunch of tiny clothespins that I got at a party supply store in the baby shower aisle. They are fabulous for holding all sorts of small things together with just a little pressure while glue dries. I used them to hold down my bias tape while it dried and my husband uses them when he's doing paper crafts.

It's really quite difficult to take a decent picture of the top of your own head.

Overall, I'm very happy with how this little project turned out. I like the idea of using a headband as more of an accessory rather than a utility object, like a rubber band for a ponytail. Now I just have to think of four more ways to dress up those others I have lying around.