Make Flower Headbands with Skinny Elastic Ribbon

Hi! I’m Britt from Charlie’s Halo. I’m so excited to be doing a tutorial for The Ribbon Retreat! In this tutorial I will teach you how to make a flower headband with skinny elastic ribbon. I am using Frayed Shabby Chiffon Flowers. Frayed flowers are so popular right now and they make great accessories for babies all the way to grandmas. Let’s get started.

All of the materials I used for this project can be purchased from The Ribbon Retreat. I picked a Neapolitan theme for this this headband, but the possibilities are endless. These are the materials and tools that I used.

Supplies to Make Flower Headbands:

Brown Skinny Elastic Ribbon
5” – ?” Brown Solid Grosgrain Ribbon
Starlight Gem
2 – 1 ¼” Light Ivory Felt Circles
2 – Frayed Shabby Chiffon Flowers (I used Ivory and Pink)

Tools to Make Flower Headbands:

Ruler or other measuring tool
Scissors
Lighter or Candle
Hot Glue
Needle & Thread

First step to creating your headband is to measure and cut your elastic ribbon. I want this headband to fit my 2 year old, so I’m going to cut my elastic ribbon to 16”. Here are the measurements I use for other sizes: Newborn-14”, 12 Months-15”, Toddler-16”, Child-17”, Teen and Adult-18”. This elastic is very stretchy and forgiving, so don’t worry if you cut it a little short.

Use your lighter (or candle) to seal the ends of your elastic to make extra it durable. This is done by quickly putting your flame close to, but not touching the ends of your elastic.

Making sure that your elastic is not twisted, overlap your ends ½” or so. I like to sew a few stitches to hold my ends together. Two or three does the job. Trim your thread and your headband is ready to be transformed!

Frayed Shabby Flowers need to be trimmed from their mesh backing before we use them. I find it easiest to turn them upside down and trim off the unneeded mesh.

Prepare any flower that you are using to be attached to the headband.

Now that the flowers are trimmed and ready to go, we will glue them together. Each of these flowers has what I call ‘ends’, as the arrows show in the picture. Place about 1 inch of hot glue over one of the ends and overlap other flower end to join the two flowers together.

To attach the flowers to my headband, I used very handy 1 ¼” felt circles. These are great, because they’re ready to use and soft on baby’s head. Start by gluing the your headband to the center of a felt circle. As you can see in the picture, I use this as an opportunity to hide stitching and reinforced my headband again.

Use hot glue to attach the felt circle to the middle of either flower. Check that the entire circle is glued to the flower and none of the edges lift.

I used another handy felt circle to finish attaching my headband to my flowers. Making sure your headband is aligned, glue the felt circle to the center of the other flower. It is now a flower headband! You can stop here, but there is always room to embellish! I love bows and gems, so that is what I picked for my headband.

I love little bows and use them embellish almost everything I make! To make a simple bow you will fold your ribbon over just the like awareness ribbons. Use a drop of glue to hold it together. Next, bring the loop of your ribbon down and glue in the center to make a cute bow. Nicely trim your ends and use your lighter to heat seal them. I used the alligator clip for demonstration, it’s not necessary.

Use a drop of glue in the middle of your bow and attach your gem.

This headband is just about done! The last step will be to attach your bow embellishment. Place hot glue on the back of your bow and glue it where your flowers meet. I like to glue mine at an angle, but you can do it any way you would like.

I have had so much fun writing this tutorial! I hope that you find it very useful in creating shabby headbands. The possibilities are endless, especially with the great selection of supplies available at The Ribbon Retreat.

Many thanks to Britt at Charlie’s Halo for this wonderful tutorial. These flowers are so beautiful and soft, and I love the added bow in the center.

I am in awe of the creations over at Charlie’s Halo. You can find the most beautiful bows and headbands and more. Make sure to stop by and check them out!

Also check out our wide selection of flowers, perfect for adding to clips, headbands, and so much more.

If you have great tutorials and a fun idea you would like to share on The Ribbon Retreat Blog,
please submit a project.

Have a wonderful day!