DIY Winter Princess Flower Headband

I am obsessed with all different kinds of headbands.  I prefer to not buy them at stores because I know I can make one that's just as good, if not better in quality.  So I decided to make a simple beaded headband using beading wire.  Since beading wire is sturdy it will stand the test of time.  I also use a bead crimper a lot during this tutorial.  I know it may seem like a pain to buy a bunch of supplies for a headband, but if you love headbands as much as I do, you will soon find many uses for a crimper. I bought all the supplies for this project at JoAnn Fabrics.  To avoid paying outrageous prices for a bead crimper, use the online coupon as much as you can.  There is always a coupon online for one regular priced item.  ALSO it is JoAnn Fabrics black Friday sale today, so GO CRAZY!! All the string beads are 60% off.  String beads are my favorite and they are not cheap so I tend to stock up when beads are on sale.

Supplies for Headband

• 2 Darice oval connectors with rhinestones on them (I found these on clearance)
• 2 packs of Bliss Beads, so a total of 6 white flower slider beads
• Soft Flex Beading Wire Medium Diameter 0.019 inches
• Wire cutter
• Flat needle nose pliers (or any flat plier you can find)
• Bead Crimper
• Crimping Beads
• 30 Mini Crystalline Glass Beads (you can choose any type of crystal beads, it doesn't matter) 
• Simplicity Elastic Headband Connector 
• Tape measure

Here's what most of my supplies look like, except that I'm missing the needle nose pliers in this picture (the pliers became a last minute decision).

Flower Centerpiece

Step 1:

Cut 11 inches of beading wire with the wire cutters and bend the wire in half to form a loop at the end.

Step 2:
Take the ends of the wire and string it down thru the oval Darice rhinestone connector so that the loop is sticking out thru the top of the connector.

Step 3:
Bring the two ends of the wire and slide it through the loop. Pull the ends and make the wire taunt so that the wire is looped around the connector's hole.  (This will create a "lark's head" knot.)

Step 4:

Flip the connector upside-down and separate the two ends of the wire. Take two of the clear beads that the white flower beads came with and run one down each of the ends of wire

Step 5:

Now take the two pieces of wire and string them through the white flower slider bead.  

Step 6:

Take two more clear beads and string them through both ends of the wire on the other end of the flower bead.

Step 7:

Put the two ends of the wire together and string two glass beads on them.  **Ensure to keep the wire running parallel throughout the whole headband.**

Step 8:

Now repeat steps 5-7 until you get to the last white flower slider bead and then stop.

Step 9:

On the last flower, only string the wire through the first two holes 

Step 10:

In between the holes for the white flower bead, place a crimping bead on each end of the beading wire and drag the crimping beads down, but DO NOT CRIMP THEM.

Step 11:

Now string the wire through the final two holes of the flower bead and finish with two clear beads on each wire end.

Step 12:

Take the other oval connector and lay it face down along with the rest of the headband.  Take both ends of the wire and string it through the oval connector bottom to top so that the two ends of the wire are sticking up.

Step 13:

Now wrap the wire around the hole like you did in step 12. Tighten the wire so the headband is not loose.

Step 14:

Now double knot the wire.  Place a crimping bead at the end to secure everything in place, and then crimp the bead with the crimper.

Step 15:

Using the needle nose pliers, feed both wire ends back through the top and bottom line of beads and pull the ends of the wire to make the wire straight and secure.

Step 16:

Since the crimp beads are really close to the other beads, you are likely going to have to crimp them down with the needle nose plier rather than the crimping tool. If needed, trim the ends of the wire with wire cutters.

Now flip the front piece of the headband over and look at your beautiful creation!  All we have to do now is attach the front of the headband to the headband connector.  

Front of the Headband

Headband Connector

Attaching the Connector

Step 1

After taking the headband connector out of the bag you are going to have to take the needle nose pliers and take off the silver claws that are attached to the end of the connector.  **Since we will not be using the silver claws in this project you can always save them for future use.**  

Step 2

Cut 7 inches of beading wire and string it through one end of the oval connector.  Stop once the wire is in halfway, and fold the wire in half. Do this for the other oval connector as well.

Step 3

The number of beads that will be placed on the folded wire will be determined by the size of your head. Place the headband connector behind your head, and visually mark where the ends rest.  Now mark where the front flower piece of the headband rests on your head. Measure the distance between both points.  For me, the distance was 1 3/4 inch so I ended up needing 10 beads to cover that distance.  String whatever number of beads you've determined for the size of your head.  String these beads on the folded wire from step 2.

Step 4

At the end of the beads string a crimper bead and again DO NOT CRIMP.

Step 5 

Separate the ends of the wire and sandwich one side of the headband connector.  Then put another crimp bead through both ends of the wire. 

Step 6

Now use your crimper to crimp the last crimping bead you just put on.

Step 7

Take the needle nose pliers and fold both ends of the wire.  Now feed it through the other crimping bead and the last glass bead you put on.

Step 8

Crimp the last crimping bead and cut off any access wire thats hanging off (if there is enough wire left you can also feed it through more glass beads).

Step 9

Repeat this process on the other end of the headband connector.  

Now that everything is finished, you can bring out your inner winter goddess and blaze through those snow storms in style!!

TBT: Halloween 2015 Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas

So Halloween is my favorite holiday and since it's gone and past I figured why not celebrate it again by sharing this frickin' amazing costume I made.  I decided of coarse the week of Halloween that I wanted to be my favorite character of ALL time, Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Since all the costumes you can buy are either sexualized or super cartoony, I decided to make my own.  

The Dress

So I went to Goodwill to start the process.  I picked out 5 plain colored shirts that looked close to the color of the patches on Sally's dress.  Next I went to Hobby Lobby for some retail therapy (some people go to the mall I go to craft stores lol). The items I bought for the costume were Aleene's Fabric Fusion fabric glue, black fabric markers, two medium plane white t-shirts, a large sewing needle, and some 40 cent black cotton embroidery floss.  If you are going to ever use fabric glue I highly recommend  Fabric Fusion.  I found that the Fabric Fusion glue is the best because you can dry clean it once it's dry, it's permanent and it adheres/dries really fast.

So after I gathered all my supplies it was time to begin.  I sketched out what Sally's dress looked like so I could plan out how much fabric I needed from each t-shirt.  Then I started making the base of the dress. I took the two plane white t-shirts and cut the top off one of the shirts.  I cut right below the sleeves so the shirt looked like a skirt.  After that I busted out my very rusty sewing skills and sewed the two shirts together to make a dress.  Once I put the dress on my assistant (aka my husband) helped draw out the neckline to mimmick Sally's.  I then took the dress and cut out the collar and the neck line.  Now the fun can begin.

So I then took my sketch and started mapping out the 5 Goodwill shirts.  Once I had the basic layout of where all the patches should go I had to really look at pictures of Sally to figure out the shapes of the patches.  This was the hardest part of the whole process because the patches each have their own shape.  Once I had the patches cut out I started drawing all the different designs with black fabric marker (never use a permanent marker because the design will bleed if you wash it and it might fade to unflattering undertones).  One of the patches on the right side has a design of 3 circles over lines.  The lines were drawn on with fabric marker but the circles were part of the green t-shirt I cut up.  Once I was good and ready with all the patches I glued them on.  I even glued the sleeves on.  I wasn't worried about covering the white dress all the way to the bottom or to the sleeves because I was going to cut it off any ways to give that tattered look.  

I let the dress dry overnight so I could put the finishing touches on the next day and not have to worry about anything getting messed up.  So after all my hard work I took a very thick sewing needle and threaded black cotton embroidery floss through it.  I went through the entire dress with the needle and thread making accent stitches so it looked like the patches were stitched together.  

Makeup, Hair, & Accessories 

To do Sally's makeup I decided to keep it more on the simpler side.  First I covered my arms, neck, and face with really light liquid foundation.  I used DermaBlend Leg and Body Cover in Ivory because it has full coverage and it will stay on all night.  To set the foundation use a white powder. I used it Cosmetics Airbrush Illuminizer to set the leg and body cover.  This actually worked out really nice because the illuminizer gave my skin a ghostly glow.  Then I used black liquid eye liner to draw the stitches on my face, neck, and arms.  For the lips I wanted a nice deep red color so I lined my lips with MAC lip pencil in Vino and filled them in with Dare You from MAC's 6 Editorial Reds Pro Lip Palette.  Last but not least the eyes. I put light blue eyeshadow on my lids, under my bottom lashes, and then I used the blue for my cheek bones.  It's hard to see in the picture though.  If I were to do it again, I probably would do the blue a little bit darker.  To top off the Sally look I used fake eyelashes that were very long, and I didn't use any mascara on the bottom lashes because Sally's top lashes are so long and accentuated. 

So now when I went to make my legs pale with stitch lines I went to trusty ole Pinterest for ideas.  I saw a pin of someone drawing stitch marks on white stockings for a Sally costume.  So of coarse I said "perfect!!" Well this actually ended up being a MAJOR Pinterest fail.  I bought too shear of tights so when I went to draw the stitches with the fabric marker, the ink transferred to my skin and faintly showed up on the stockings.   SO thank goodness I bought an extra pair because my legs looked really goofy with both my skin and the stockings marked up.  The stockings were just sheer enough so that in the end you could see the stitch marks on my skin, and I looked really pale like how Sally does.  I would not recommend using marker on your skin.  Instead the liquid eyeliner would have worked just fine with the stockings over. Lesson learned.  Then to finish off the legs I wore white black striped tube socks with black booties.  

The last piece to this look is Sally's hair.  I went to amazon.com and bought two packs of $10 hair extensions.  The hair was good quality for being super cheap but they gave me two different colors, what's up with that? I had no time to return one of the packs so I said whatev's and used both colors.  I bought a Large Band Wig Cap from Sally's Beauty Supply and tied my hair back and put it on.  Once the cap was on I clipped the extensions to the cap and BAM I was Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas!!!