Fabric Flower Hair Clip Tutorial

I had a top that I really liked, but could no longer fit into it after I had my first kid *sob sob*.  I just couldn't bear to send it to the Salvation Army, so I decided to upcycle it into a fabric flower hair clip.

First of all, I cut a template from a cereal box:

Cut out a 5-petal flower template

Use the template to draw out 9 flowers on your chosen fabric.  I used a ball point pen here so that it shows up better.  No issue, just cut slightly inside the pen markings

Mark out 9 flowers on fabric

Then cut them out:

9 fabric flowers

Fold 8 of the pieces into quarters.  Don't match up the edges when you fold them, the more they don't match up, the better the effect.  Here's what one of them looks like:

Flower folded in quarters

Now get ready a small circle of felt:

Pink felt to match the fabric

Using a hot glue gun, glue 4 folded pieces to the felt like this:

3 folded pieces glued to felt circle

1st layer of 4 folded pieces

Now, use another 4 folded pieces and glue another layer, offsetting the pieces like this:

2nd layer of folded pieces should be offset by 45 degrees

2nd layer completed

Now, with the final flower (number 9), fold it in half, roll it up to form a bud and glue so that it keeps its shape:

All rolled up

After rolling, the bottom gets quite bulky, so use your scissors and cut a little bit of the tip off, holding on to the bud firmly so that it doesn't unroll.

Snip off the bottom tip

We're almost there.... put a generous amount of hot glue in the centre of your petal layers and hold the bud firmly in place until the glue hardens

Glue bud to centre of petal layers

Ruffle up the petals as you wish, adding some glue here and there to hold the petals in place.  And here's the final fabric flower:

Completed fabric flower

Since I'm going to use this as a hair clip, the final step for me was to glue on the clip and there you have it -- an upcycled fabric flower hair clip:

Glue on the clip