I've discovered a new hobby that is very therapeutic for myself!
Introducing the Do-It-Yourself (aka DIY) ribbon hair clip!
Sometime ago, I saw a mummy friend in my FB SAHM group sharing that she wants to pass on her ribbon hair clip making knowledge to whoever who is interested. To be honest, I was interested but there were so many mummies responded in that post thread that they want to learn so I just keep quiet myself and continue on with my busy life...
Until recently, I plucked up the courage to send a personal message to that mummy friend (who is also on my friend list since then) and asked her about the ribbon hair clip making updates and how the other mummies are learning on from her.
To my surprise, she said no mummies contacted her personally and I'm the only one who asked her about it now. And so, that sparked off my interest again and I began Googling for more info and also sending lots more PMs to my friend (her name is Kerry btw) asking her as and when I came across some bargain deals online,to find out from her whether it is worth it to purchase such items etc.
She gave some important inputs to me on what items to look out for such as the type of ribbons to get is grosgrain ribbons, the sizes, the type of alligator hair clips, the craft glues, and so on.
I told her I will only pester her if I need any more info and went on to buy from 2 online store. I have so far received one of the package while the other apparently got stuck in the postal office (status shown unable to deliver to me and package returned back to post office - and I've got NO notice card left by postman to proof that I can collect it personally at the pots office.. sigh, that is another story)
Anyway, with the package I received, I started off doing the hair clip, with a very simple tutorial to practise my skills. Which I intend to start off with learning how to glue the hair clip all over. And then slowly add other appliques or decorations on the hair clips as I practised along.
So how is this new hobby of mine end up being so therapeutic? Well, most of the time when I was doing the hair clips, both my kiddos left me alone. I get some 'me' time and honestly, I needed as much uninterrupted time as possible because at 8 months pregnancy now, BOTH my kiddos are really, really, really clingy at me! I can't even be out of sight from our 4 years old boy! I go to bathroom and not even 5 seconds, my boy asked from outside 'Mummy are you done?'. I tried to take a nap (despite the risks of being slammed down by my kiddos on the bed when they skipped their daytime nap) and my boy goes 'Mummy are you sleeping?' or 'Mummy you sleep enough?'
Even though I will be sitting on my chair at my desk doing the hair clips and still needing to entertain my kiddos, our 2 years old girl will most of the time immediately climb up to my chair and squeezed right next to me and started touching everything on my desk and our 4 years old boy will go 'Mummy see', 'Mummy look', 'Mummy why..' every 10 seconds on average, oh well, at least when I'm doing the ribbon hair clips, my kids left me alone. That is some precious moment of peace!
So yes, I've been practising and trying out new designs almost everyday and I get extremely excited when I see my girl gently touching her hair after I pinned the hair clip on her head. She is so scared that the clip will fall off. I chuckled when I see her smiling and looking at the mirror immediately after I put on the hair clip. Vainpot! Hahahah!
I started with a simple ribbon hair clip where I learned to glue the ribbon all over to cover the hair clip and then topping it off with a cute pink hat button.
I then tried to make my own decoration by following a sample online, making a strawberry flower topping.
The following day, we saw a gigantic rainbow above our house in the evening and that sparked my ambition to try out the rainbow hair clip. A tad too big as I did the rainbow without proper measurements, but I like it nevertheless! Made two at the same time and gave the other one away to a good friend of ours, his daughter is younger than mine.
I also made a pair of hair clips which I dubbed the 'Mother and Daughter hair clips' also given to our good friend, I hope they like it!
And this is one of my latest result! I am very happy with this though definitely need more fine-tuning - I still need to figure out how to stick the back of the lollipop properly to the hair clip and most probably need to get a thinner ribbon instead of the current 8mm width of ribbon I'm using now. It makes the lollipop a tad too big and thick for the tiny hair clip but it looks so superbly cute on our 2 years old girl, right?
I also made some fruit themed hair clips such as grape hair clip and banana hair clip shown below:
Anyway, you can view the pictures of My DIY Hair Clip Project I made so far which I shared on my Facebook page. As for tutorials, I hope I can share with you what I learned but most of them you can also find online anyway. I am not confident at all to teach anyone as of now as I am still learning myself and would not want to be teaching anyone the wrong thing. I can only share that one of the online store I used will be getting more clients as I have been recommending mummy friends and my blog followers to purchase the materials there. The price is OK for beginners like me but if you plan to do this more and in the long run, best would be to buy from eBay or other websites which can sell wholesale quantity.
Until then, I hope to be able to make more awesome ribbon hair clips for my children. Again, a very special note of thanks to Kerry for her guidance and tips in helping me along with my new journey!
