Plaid Flower Blooms out of Ribbon – Vintage Christmas Hair Accessories Tutorial #4

My last installment for Christmas Hair Accessories can be used as both a hair flower accessory or a flower clip to wear on your clothes. Here are some simple directions for taking a pretty, plaid ribbon and turning it into an oh so cute plaid hair flower.

These make great gifts too. You can attach them to the outside of a present for decoration.

The hairstyle is just a simple french twist and I feel like there are a million tutorials out there on how to do one. I even have one in the book Vintage Hairstyling, so I am going to spend my time showing the tutorial on making the hair flower instead. It is easy and you can do it while you watch a Christmas movie.

I found that ribbon with too strong a wire in the edges doesn’t work best. More flexible ribbon makes a softer edged flower. I’m using a 1.25 inch thick ribbon cut in 14″ lengths.

Next sew a basting stitch along one edge of the ribbon. A basting stitch is the easiest sewing stitch you can do, so if you aren’t a sewer, there is no reason you shouldn’t still be able to make this. Here is a YouTube video on doing a basting stitch. I used light colored thread here just so you can see the stitch better. Leave the needle attached to the thread for now.

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Holding on to one end of the thread, press the ribbon to tighten and gather it along into a circle. You may need to do a few stitches when you have gathered everything together to keep it all in place and to make sure the seam of the 2 edges doesn’t show. Tie a knot in the thread to hold everything gathered and now it is ok to cut the thread off of the needle.

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Next we are going to make a clip that can either hold the flower to your hair or to the lapel or edge of your clothes.

Cut a piece of ribbon to fit. I’m using a single prong hair clip from Sally’s, so my ribbon piece needs to be 3.25 inches long and 1/4 inch thick to fit properly. I need two pieces to cover the clip.

Use a hot glue gun to run a thin line of glue down the length of the ribbon.

Open the clip and insert the ribbon in between the prongs to glue it to the clip. Wrap the ribbon all the way along and around one prong of the clip to cover it. Use the second piece of ribbon to cover the opposite prong.