Wednesday, December 28, 2011

3 Girls = 3 Headband Holders

As many of you know I have been blessed with 3 sweet daughters. They all have their own personalities but one thing that is consistent among them all is their long hair and love of headbands. To go with this is a constant need for somewhere to put the headbands. I have considered what to make to store the headbands on for some time now. I have googled it, wandered through stores looking for things to re-purpose and even questioned the good people at Charming Charlie's to see if their displays were available for sale ... honestly this has been on my list for a while. Finally, I decided to combine a few different ideas of things that I have seen in the past and make holders for each of the girls for Christmas.  




Supplies


Wood clock base ... I bought mine from Michaels. They are about 6 1/2 inches in diameter and were less than $5 a piece. They had a hole in the middle although my husband did have to drill a counter sink hole also.


Knob ... This will be for the top. If you have some at home from a previous project use it. It needs to be pretty wide though. Close to the width of the paper towel roll is great. You will need to take it with you to the hardware store to purchase the right width threaded rod. More on that below.  


Threaded metal rod, hollow aluminum rod, nut and washer ... We got ours from the local hardware store. I say "we" because my husband was a big help with this part. I tend to avoid any work that requires tools or supplies that are normally housed in the garage. The aluminum rod was big enough to fit the threaded rod inside. I'm not sure that this is completely necessary but this was the image that my husband had in his mind and since I needed his help I went with it. The threaded rod was the right fit for the knob and the nut and washer fit as well.


A full roll of paper towels ... I use cheap paper towels for cleaning so I took mine from the cleaning supplies. 


Fabric ... mine was about 19" x 17". Just make sure you have enough to go around the paper towel roll and tuck in at the top and bottom.


Batting ... I used some from a pack of crib batting that I have been using for misc. crafts for a while. You will need a piece that is approximately 18" x 11".


Hot glue gun for badly burning your index finger 3 days before Christmas, I mean for securing the fabric and batting.  No sewing necessary.


Spray paint ... if you have a plastic knob be sure to get paint that will adhere to plastic.


Tools ... hack saw or cut off wheel to cut the rods down to size and a drill with a counter sink bit.


First, I spray painted the clock bases and the knobs. It was a very windy day but I was running out of chances to get it done while the kids were at school so I had to deal with it. Yes, those are cans of food from my pantry holding the newspaper down and yes I took this picture with my phone because my daughter decided it would be a good day to fulfill her duties as historian of the Latin Club and actually take pictures so my camera was with her at school.



Next, I covered the paper towel rolls. Each were covered with batting first and then fabric. I ironed a crease in the edge of the fabric and used hot glue to hold it down. Be sure you have enough fabric on each side to cover the top and bottom of the roll and to tuck into the cardboard roll before you hot glue the edge down. No gluing necessary for the batting, it tends to grab onto itself anyway.  







Next I tucked in the edges. I folded the extra back, applied a little hot glue and then started folding and tucking. This was where I burned my finger. I added a little extra glue, folded and tucked only I completely missed the fabric and stuck my finger straight in the glue. If you're going to suggest that I buy a multi-temp gun let me save you the trouble. I have a multi-temp gun but I'm impatient and had it set on high.




  
After this my paper towel rolls were covered and ready to be assembled but my husband hadn't started on his part yet. This was not his fault though. It was me telling him not to do anything until I could take pictures.  :)


First he drilled a counter sink hole in each base. This was so the nut and washer wouldn't stick out and the base could sit flat.  





Next he cut down the threaded rod and the hollow aluminum rod. Measure for yourself please but ours turned out to be 11 1/2" for the threaded rod and 10 1/2" for the hollow aluminum rod. These measurements could be different for you depending on the thickness of your base and fabric. He then put the threaded rod through and attached the washer and nut making sure that the base sat flat once they were on.  




Next was final assembly. With the covered paper towel roll on we screwed the knobs down tight into the top of the paper towels so that the roll wouldn't shift around and I test fitted a few headbands.  




And that's it. They were ready to go under the tree and ready to take their respective places on each girl's dresser and be filled with even more headbands.  



And now a little celebration is in order. Today I reached 1,000 "likes" on my facebook page for my etsy shop, Applique Time. I am super excited to have reached this milestone and the timing was perfect since the goal I set was to reach 1,000 before the end of the year. Because of this and to say "thank you" to all of my wonderful customers and followers I have included this applique design as a free download here.  


I really do appreciate each of you and hope you enjoy the free design. If you're the kind that follows blogs please consider following me. I promise I won't post so often that you can't keep up.  :)

I wish everyone a prosperous and peaceful 2012!

Bridgette
  































3 comments:

  1. I've been doing these headband holders for a while but haven't used the batting. Great idea. I'll have to try it on the next one I make. I like your holders also. You can personalize these rather than buy them.

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  2. Forgot to say Thanks for the cute heart and the ones on AF.

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