Jungle Barrettes

When I was planning somewhat personal party favors for Cole's birthday party guests, I came to a stumbling-point. What party favor could I possibly offer to a nine month old that was reasonably priced and not a gift?

I finally decided on getting her some hair accessories that were jungle print (but the thought had never crossed my mind to MAKE them), perhaps a print piece of clothing or baby picture frame.

The other day, I realized I could MAKE Kyleigh her party favors. Or even make a set of print barrettes to wear at the party. I found some orange and black felt and set to work. Here's the results:
The top barrette was my first draft. While it came out cuter than anticipated, it was harder than expected. I had to tack those little strips down good and that took time and cramped space for sore fingers.

I don't like how close the two far left stripes are. Attempt #2 is the bottom one and I'm in love with it! I cannot wait to gift them to her Momma.

I'm in prep to make a zebra stripe set as well! Here's to hoping those come out as well. :)

(ETA: I found out that Kyleigh's room theme is jungle. How convenient!)

Critters!

These are my critter barrettes. I wish I could post a pattern but I just eyeball what's in my head and cut. If I'm satisfied with the result, I use that piece to measure the others needed. This is Ladybug Take #1:
Overall, I'm satisfied with the result. This is Kyleigh's set. As always, there are two barrettes that match, I only photograph one.

This is Ladybug Barrette #2:
As always, I try to do minor improvements as they come to me. I changed to one bead spot rather than two per spot as seen in Kyleigh's version. I also added a little black tacking up the split in the wings to highlight them better and a split in my leaf with light green tacking. I absolutely love this barrette.

This is my Fish Barrette #1. You can barely see it, but I added two small blue beads for bubble by the fish's mouth. I drew inspiration for this, but did not use her pattern, from this blog by Pink Tea.
This is Frog Barrette #2. Frog Barrette #1 had the tongue attached visibly by sewing the bottom lip. I didn't like that result as I'm still learning to be neat and tidy on hand stitching. This guy was completely in my head and came to life. I made adjustments as I worked him over. I'm incredibly happy with this guy in person. This picture doesn't do his colors justice.

Future Critter Barrettes will include a Butterfly, Panda, and possibly Dragonfly. We shall see how those turn out. :)

Special Event Barrettes?

My best friend (Kyleigh's mother) recently announced that she's planning her wedding. She's said that she wants to do a classic but modern, bright and happy wedding, with white as her main color but accented with bright pink and orange.

I randomly checked my felt stash and happened to find a lot of hot pink and orange. Here's the result:


I'm not confident enough to think she'll use these for her daughter at her wedding, but I'm really happy with how they came out. I love the polka dots especially. Before I tacked them down, I wasn't happy with them at all.
The flowers barrette was a hassle. They were laying flat and I didn't like that. It was too blah for me. So I used thread and pinched two petals together and threw some thread between before pulling it taunt until I was pleased with the height. They came out really cute. Although the picture really doesn't do that justice.

(ETA: There may be more flower ones coming soon. Although they won't be event special.)

Rainbow Barrettes

These are my rainbow barrettes. I'm happy with how the camera captured the colors of the beads. I was concerned it wouldn't be true to color, but they look pretty accurate.

On my first set, I used white thread to close the barrette. On the second set, I used color coordinating thread to close the barrette in. I prefer the color version. :)

Barrettes

I finally got around to photographing a bunch of the barrettes I've made recently. Since taking these pictures and getting them uploaded, I've completed a few more that I need to photograph!

I'll likely end up organizing these guys to groups that seem relevant but until then:

I've been using small glass beads on some, some mini buttons, and just colored felt with regular barrettes.


I've been making two sets of the ones I love. One for my future "planned" daughter (let's cross our fingers on that!) and one for my niece, Kyleigh.

I cannot wait for Kyleigh to get a little more hair since I'm having such a good time making these.

Kyleigh is the lucky (or perhaps unlucky) trial runs. You can definitely see which pieces were my first by the poor stitching. :)