The highlight of Mary Ashley's recent Birthday Craft Fair was making crafts with the girls, who ranged in age from 6 to 9. I planned three projects for the afternoon. Crafting is Mary Ashley's favorite pastime, but I wasn't sure how many other guests would share her interest. I thought making accessories would appeal to a broad range of girls, whether they boast a knack for crafts or a passion for fashion.
Our first craft of the day was making floral headbands. The girls loved this project! I purchased pink and white headbands from the jewelry department at Hobby Lobby and let each girl choose one as we began. The headbands came with a little ribbon loop wrapped around them, which allows embellishments to be changed out.
I set up a "booth" in the sitting room with a variety of pretty embellishments for making our floral headbands. The girls got to shop here for their favorites.
We made three types of headband embellishments. The girls loved this project so much, we could have spent the whole afternoon making these accessories. Keep reading for details of our three options.
Shabby Rose Headbands
The first accessories we made were shabby roses. I used Tanya Whelan's Delilah fabric for most of the roses (purchased here), then made a few more with scraps of fabric in my stash. I made the roses ahead of time by tearing strips of fabric and gathering them. You could do this with a sewing machine, but I did it by sewing a loose stitch by hand with DMC floss. Then I pulled the gathers, wound the strip into a flower, and stitched it together. To add a little detail, on some of the flowers I added a few more stitches to create a bud and petals. Each flower was unique. I displayed the flowers on covered cake plates and pinned several to my dress form and let each girl choose her favorite. Each girl then glued a felt button to the back of her flower. The girls used fabric glue for this project, but one of the other moms had to go back with hot glue to secure some of the flowers. So the girls could clip their shabby roses to a headband or pin them to a sweater, we added a pin and a clip to the felt button. These turned out so pretty!
Covered Button Silk Flowers
The girls' favorite project of the day was making covered buttons to glue to the center of a silk flower. In fact, I wish I had bought more covered button kits because the girls were eager to make more when our supplies ran out. I found bouquets of silk flowers on sale for $2 each at Michaels and picked up Gerber daisies in pink, white and yellow. We cut the stems off the flowers and hot glued an alligator clip to the back. I filled a little pitcher with scraps of fabric and let the girls choose their favorites for making covered buttons. None of the girls had ever made a covered button before, but quickly discovered what a quick and easy project it is. Several were eager to show their moms how to make a covered button, and one was determined to go to a craft store that very night to get a kit. We hot glued a covered button to the center of each flower. I chose buttons a little larger than the centers, so we did not have to disassemble the silk flowers. My friend Stacey set up a station to hot glue everything for the girls. We didn't want to risk burning any little girls' fingers, so they waited patiently for their turn with Stacey.
Buttons and Bows
Mary Ashley actually suggested our final headband craft: making bows and letting the girls glue a button to the knot. I had ribbon and buttons leftover from other projects, so we let the girls choose the options they wanted. Stacey hot glued the buttons and alligator clips to the bows, and I ran a lighter across the ends of the grosgrain ribbon to seal the edges.
It was really neat to see the girls' finished products. They came up with some beautiful combinations for their headbands.
And the real treat is seeing their beautiful faces framed by headbands they made at Mary Ashley's Birthday Craft Fair.
For our next project, we are returning to the picnic quilt to make a beaded craft together.
