"Perfect Bow" Lace Headbands

Awhile back a nice company called Bra Components sent me an email asking "if they were to send me a package of their elastic lace products could I use them for some sort of crafting project?"

Um, yeahhhh.

You could send me a bag of zip ties & I'll find something to do with it.
They of course would like it if I blogged about their product but if I wasn't completely happy with it I didn't have to. No strings attached. Lucky for me what they sent me was AWESOME & I can honestly say I would've totally spent my own money of it.When Samster was a little balding beauty I looked all over for pretty colors of lace elastic to make her headbands out of & had such a hard time finding them. If only I had known about Bra Components...such pretty colors & it's a really nice quality elastic, very soft so it's perfect for little heads.

When my family was here my sister whipped up a bunch of these & over the weekend I went a little crazy making them too. Once I got started I just couldn't stop & ended up with all these hair supplies by the end of naptime. (jewels for clips & felt flowers are from my own random supplies) I know this isn't very hard but I thought I'd give you a quick tutorial nonetheless for making the perfect bow headband. Start off by cutting a piece of elastic that's the circumference of the person's head where they wear their headband. If it's a gift perhaps these measurements will help...

Newborn 12"
Infant 14"
Toddler/Child 16"
Adult 18"

Next either hand or machine stitch the two ends together. (with right sides facing together)For the embellishments the skies the limit but here's my secret to making a perfect bow.

Start off with a piece of elastic that's 4" long. Bring in the two short ends so they meet in the center, stitch into place. Next take another piece of elastic that's 3" long and tie a knot (not too tight) in the center of it. Using a small dab of glue or your needle & thread attach the knot to the center of your previous piece. Layer your pieces together like this, headband on the bottom, 4" piece in the middle & knotted piece on top. (lay the center of your 4" piece over the seam of the headband if you want to hide the seam) You'll have two ends hanging off of each side of your knotted piece. Use these one at a time to tightly wrap down & around the other two pieces. Stitch or glue into place.You'll have a perfect faux bow that also covers your stitches from the headband. How easy was that?

I made this pink one by doing a faux bow out of felt strips & using two thin headband elastics.
I have to say I'm cautiously optimistic that maybe we're getting in a bit of a routine around here. The last couple of days Sophie has slept in 4 hr increments during the night (I never thought that 4 hours of sleep would sound so very sweet) & has napped around the same time as Samster in the afternoon. Hence the headbands & an actual blog post.

So now I'm gonna go & get greedy...

After reading about a few of you doing this I decided to go ahead & sign up for the "kids clothes challenge week"...
The idea is that you set aside an hour every day to sew clothes for your little ones. The weather's been starting to cool off around here & honestly, every night I go to sleep dreaming about what long-sleeve knit dresses & legwarmers I'm DYING to make Samster for the fall. I thought this might give me the extra little push I need to go ahead & get them done. Yes, I should probably be sleeping that hour or you know, showering, but you know what? Crafting is my time so this is going to be a little present to me. (:

So far I'm counting the headbands as Sunday's sewing project & last night I actually got to sew an entire dress for Samster! I can't wait to show it to you but I'm going to save it for a very special playdate we're having tomorrow. Hopefully our new crafty friend will be ever so kind as to let me blog about our little get together. (wink wink)
Whew, after all that excitement now I'm spent.