How To Make A Starry 4th of July Headband For Dolls | Free Tutorial

Hi Everyone! Check our this amazing fun and crafty tutorial!

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It’s summer and it’s time to celebrate! There are so many good flag holidays in the summer, plus red, white, and blue is just a great all around patriotic color scheme. Celebrate this summer and this 4^th of July with a super cute headband that you can make for your dolls!

Supplies:

• Wide elastic, fold-over elastic, or ribbon
  
• Felt in your choice of red, white, or blue, or all 3!
  
• Pipe cleaners (I used metallic but regular is ok, too.)
  
• Silver metallic scrapbook paper
  
• Red, white, and blue narrow ribbons and/or embroidery floss, narrow rick rack, sequins, anything fun you can think of!
• Hot glue gun and glue
• Scissors
  
• Sewing machine (optional)
• Lighter (optional)

Step 1: Cut a length of elastic that is 11 inches long for AG dolls, and 10 inches long for WellieWishers or Ruby Red Fashion Friends dolls. Overlap the ends by half an inch, and sew together. If you are using ribbon, cut a length about 28 inches long for AG dolls and 22 inches long for the smaller dolls. We want it long enough to be able to tie easily, and then have pretty ribbon ends hanging down.

Step 2: Cut a rounded rectangle of felt 3 inches by 1 inch for AG dolls and 2 inches by 1 inch for the smaller dolls. Set aside, as we will use it later. Take your felt and cut out three stars large enough to cover the width of your elastic or ribbon. We took a few minutes to make a template out of white paper. We made stars about 2.25 inches wide from point to point for AG dolls and 1.75 inches from point to point for the smaller dolls.

Step 3: Take a pipe cleaner and cut it in half. Now take one end and push the wire through the center of one of the stars. You may need to poke a tiny hole in the felt with a seam ripper or carefully with a pair of scissors. You just want it big enough for the wire to fit through. Let the pipe cleaner stick out about an inch and a half on the underside of the felt. Holding the long end of the pipe cleaner perpendicular to the felt, bend the short end right where it touches the felt and make a right angle, so it is now flush with the back of the star. Bend it again about a 1/4 inch away from your first end, then wind the leftover length into a swirl shape. You want this to be flush with the bottom of the felt, as it is going to act like a sort of anchor to keep the pipe cleaner from tipping over. Once you are happy with the swirl, make sure it is not showing from the top side of the star.

Repeat on a second star, and trim the long part of the pipe cleaners to 2 3/8 inches for AG dolls and 2 inches for smaller dolls.

Step 4: Now we are going to glue the stars to the elastic or ribbon. Place the rectangle of felt you cut earlier under your elastic or ribbon and lightly hot glue in place. Then place one star with a pipe cleaner attached on top and glue in place on the left side, making a “sandwich”, if you will. Then glue the star with no pipe cleaner in the center, overlapping them just a little, then the third star with pipe cleaner on the right, again overlapping a little. Make sure you now get glue on the edges of the bottom rectangle to make a good seal around your elastic or ribbon.

Step 5: Now the fun part! You need to cut many lengths of ribbon and/or embroidery thread, or any other fun, sparkly stuff you can think of. For my AG doll I cut my lengths at 3.5 inches, and for my smaller dolls I cut them at 2.5 inches. A little crafting trick is to use a lighter and just barely melt the ends of the ribbons so that they do not fray. This will not work on cotton or other natural fibers, but most ribbons nowadays are polyester. Now your ribbons are “heat sealed”!

Once they are all cut and ends melted separate into two piles. Using your hot glue carefully, arrange your ribbons and attach them to each other into two little bundles. Keep in mind you are making a front or good side. Set bundles of ribbon aside.

Step 6: Using your silver scrapbook paper, cut out 4 stars, as close to identical as you can get them. We used our smaller star templates from before for both doll sizes.

Now carefully hot glue one of your bundles of ribbons to the wrong side of one of the stars. Make sure they are clustered in the middle, and that your front is facing the front of the paper. Repeat for a second star.

Step 7: Having the beribboned silver stars on front, and the other two stars on the back, glue the stars like a sandwich around the tops of the pipe cleaners, enclosing as much of the sides as you can. Let the ribbons hang down and don’t catch any in your star sandwich.

Once your hot glue has cooled and your hot glue strings have been eliminated, you’re done!

These are so super cute, I’m sure all your dolls will want one for the celebrations to come!!

We'd love to see your creations too, so if you make one, please tag us on Instagram @forofsuch @PixieFaire 

You can also share pictures in the Pixie Faire Inspiration Gallery right here on the website, either use the #pixiefaire when posting on IG, or just click the little + box to upload your picture right here on the website!

Thanks everyone!

For Pixie Faire, @forofsuch

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