Be inspired: Paper Clip Earrings With Matching Hair Pieces

For the first time this year, Ally decided that she wanted to give her friends home made presents for the holidays. Two of Ally's close friends celebrate Hanuka, so we needed to find something that could be personalized, and that wasn't too Christmas-y. We scoured all of our craft books for ideas, and this is what we came up with. I did the math, and each of these gifts cost us about $1.50 to make, and that is including the gift bag. Say word.

Supplies:

• Hair Combs 
• Super Glue
• Liquid Stitch
• Paper Clips
• Earring tops/hooks (missing from picture)
• Cotton String
• Gift bags

The first thing you will need to do is take the paper clip apart. You just unfold it until it makes a triangle. Then superglue the ends together to make them stay. (Keep in mind, the triangle will come apart very easily, so you have to be careful.)

Then take cotton string color of your choosing, and tie a knot in the string around the paper clip, just to give yourself a starting point and a stable foundation.

Then you just wrap the string around the paper clip, covering the entire thing with the string. You can get creative with this. Use a few colors, make designs; personalize it. Ally used her friends' favorite colors, and we tried to give them all somewhat different designs. 

Then you add the earring hooks, and you are done! So where does the glue come in, right? Wellll.......I have a major case of OCD when it comes to making sure things I make for others don't come apart. I just think it would be horrible if I gave you something that I made and it fell apart while they were wearing it. So I used superglue to glue the tied knots to the paper clip, and I applied a thin layer of liquid stitch to the paperclip before wrapping the cotton string around it. I don't know if this part is necessary, though; Ally skipped it and hers came out just fine :)

Take the same colored strings that you used for the earrings (or different colors, its up to you) and wrapped the strings around the plastic hair combs to make the coordinating pieces:

Here is another example of the finished product:

Ally and I love the way they turned out.  I hope her friends enjoy them, and maybe they will appreciate them more because they are home made. :)

Be inspired: DIY Flower Hair Clips

One of the things that I love about the blogging world is that there is  no limit to the amount of knowledge and ideas that we can all gain from each other. I am constantly being inspired by posts I see from fellow bloggers, vloggers, and followers. I wanted to share my newest source of inspiration with you.

Terri over at Naturally Speaking 2 U became bored of her protective hairstyles, and decided to spruce them up by learning how to create her own flower hair clips. She even made a video to share with us how to make them:




How cool is that?! I think that video pretty much answers any questions we may have about how to get make the clips, from start to finish.

I just started getting into making hair accessories myself, so I can tell you from experience...it is way more fun, and less expensive (if you know how to shop, of course) to make your own hair accessories. Terri even made it into family time and had her mother in law and sister get in on the fun, and she used combined this with her other hobby (photography) to take some awesome pictures of them all wearing the clips.

If the idea of making your own flower hair clips inspires you, try it!!! And head on over to Terri's blog to see how all of hers came out.

If you have a source of inspiration you would like to share with us, there is information under the "Contact Us' tab that explains how to do so.