A back-to-school hair accessory

It’s back-to-school time, and you can’t overlook the hair accessories. A while ago I found this great tutorial for a braided headband on the Smile and Wave blog via homemade by jill. It was a guest post from Cakies. I just recently had a chance to try it. The headband is really simple and fun to make.

I made one headband for myself and one for my three year old. I used a double braid for mine and a single for my daughter. I think I like the single braid better.

The best part was letting my daughter choose the three fabrics she liked to make her headband.

She had a little guidance, of course. I definitely want to make her a few more of these. It looks especially cute when she has it on with a ponytail in her hair.

Here are a few tips if you think you might like to make one:

• The tutorial doesn’t specify a width to use for your fabric strips. It doesn’t really matter, but I used 1” wide strips.
• Make sure you braid your fabric tightly or at least with the same amount of tension throughout the entire length of the fabric.
• If you are making the headband for a child, check the length of the finished braid and the length of the elastic before you sew everything together. I ended up using both a shorter braid and a shorter elastic length to fit my daughter’s head.
• The edges of the fabric will fray, but that adds to the charm of the headband.

 Come back Monday for my first tutorial! I’ll be making another simple back-to-school hair accessory.