{DIY} To See the Senorita, With Flowers in Her Hair

Lil Diva is a bit of a fashionista.

She loves accessorizing, whether it be blingy rings, charm bracelets, necklaces, earrings, headbands....you name it, she has it.  Her latest fascination has been with flower pins.

I know I may be partial, seeing that she is my daughter and all, but she has been stopped many of times to be complimented on her hair.  So it's no wonder she loves adding pretty accessories to it.  When she first got into the floral kick, we would purchase pins at Claire's. I would balk when I saw the price tags on these very simply made pins.  She purchased a couple and one day I decided to take a closer look at one.  I thought, Wow, this is super easy to make.  I bought the necessary supplies and made one. Super simple.  I even had my girl scout troop make their own for a project.  Yesterday, Lil Diva was looking at her wardrobe and realized she could use certain colors. So what did we do? Stopped at our local craft store and found some pretty flowers, of course.

Supplies needed:

Your choice floral stems
felt (any color, I use a dark brown or black to match her hair)
box of single prong hair clips
glue gun
glue sticks
scissors

- First thing first... plug in your glue gun, insert the glue stick.  You want the glue nice and hot for maximum adhesiveness.

 - Take your flowers and  pull the flowers off their stem.  That's right pull, one gentle tug and they are out.

- If there is still a bit of stem left on your flower, cut it with the scissors so the back of the flower is pretty much flat.

- Next, cut two strips of the felt. one about 1/2 an inch wide, and another strip about 3/4 inch.  Depending on the flower, you will cut the 3/4 inch strip large enough to cover the inner circle of the back of the flower.  Adhere it to the flower.  I do this in order to give the flower a flush area to adhere the pin to.

 

- Adhere a strip of glue to the outside prong of the hair clip. For this I suggest you hold the pin in the open position and quickly place the flower onto it.  No worries on how long you have to keep it open since hot glue dries rather quickly. Once it is dry you can put a strip onto the 1/2 inch strip, open the pin again and glue it onto the underside of the open clip and the felt.  This will help secure the flower in place.

The finished product:

And the third one:

I hope this has inspired some of you to make your own floral hair pins to add to your Spring and Summer accessories.

P.S. Did I mention that it only took me 15 minutes total to make these 3 beauties?

Have fun!

{DIY} Queen of Hearts Scepter

Lil Miss (or Lil Diva as we like to call her when she gets demanding) loves to ask for my help in choosing a costume for Halloween.  Having been that kid who went shopping for costumes late due to monetary constraints growing up, I always ended up with a costume that wasn't my first choice.  I vowed when I became a parent, I would make sure my children would always have their first choice costume.  I am "that" parent that sets out to purchase her child's costume in late August.  Lil Man was easy....he wanted to be Captain America.  His only request...."I don't want to be the muscly one mom.....just a plain comfortable costume."  Fine, I appeased him, much to my dismay.

Finding the perfect costume for Lil Miss is so much fun!  I scour through the endless costume choices online and then bring my selection to her for the final verdict.  This year?  She will be a cute and girly Queen of Hearts. She and I both looked online at the props and saw this one. 

We loved it.  What we didn't love was the price.  $20?!!? plus shipping for a ribbon decorated dowel with cards? No way.  I looked at Lil Miss and told her, I can make this for at least half the price.  Lucky thing Lil Miss reminded me she needed her prop on Monday....I ran out to the store to purchase the necessary items.

A lot of the consumables (glues, trimmers, heart punch, glitter glue, white acrylic paint, red and black cardstock) I already had at home.  I ended up purchasing: Dowel, deck of cards, Red, Black, white ribbon (didn't end up using the white), and gold ornate jewelry.

 

How Did I Do It?

*I started off by painting the wooden dowel white. *Since the center of the gold ornate jewelry was blue, I used my red glitter glue to change it to a more appropriate red.  *I removed the Jack, King, & Queen of Hearts cards out of the deck and adorned the hearts and the letters with red glitter glue as well.  *I let them dry overnight to insure they had dried thoroughly.  *Next morning, I hot glued the red ribbon candy cane style around the white dowel. *I adhered the black ribbon around the bottom where she will hold it from.  *I then took the red wire ribbon and tied a bow to where the black ribbon meets the white dowel portion.  *I secured it from unraveling with a dot of hot glue.  *Once that dried I attached the now red centered gold ornate jewelery to the center of the bow. * I attached the King and Jack off centered to the back of the dowel, and then adhered the Queen centered to the front of the dowel. * Finally, I added the framed red heart to the bottom of the Queen of Hearts card where it meets the dowel.

And this is the final product:

 

My $8 take on the Queen of Hearts Scepter.