Bandana Headband DIY

Yesterday I posted a step by step tutorial of how I made my bandana bracelet out of the bandanas my little dog used to wear before she passed away. Today, I made a headband out of one of them! This one does require sewing, so if you're like me and can't sew for your life, turn away now. Unless you're even more like me and have an awesome seamstress sister willing to help you out. 

This is the bandana I decided to use:

I started with a spare black headband and flipped the bandana upside down. Then I dug out some wire that I had in my jewelry making box and formed it to the headband, then cut it and straightened it out. 

The only reason I formed it to the headband was to get an accurate length for the wire. One way I thought to do it originally was to just wrap up the bandana and attach it to the headband, but then I thought it'd be better to wrap it around the headband, which I couldn't figure out how to manage, and that's where the wire came in.

This is where you're going to need a seamstress with a cool sewing machine. I lined the wire up where I wanted it to go on the bandana and handed it over to Tessa.

This is what it looked like once she was finished: 

It is a bit off centered, but it honestly doesn't matter at all. Neither does the color of the thread, since we will be covering it soon. She used a zig-zag stitch very slowly as to not break the needle on the wire. She says that before you start sewing to use the wheel on the side of the machine to be sure that the width of the stitch is wide enough and that it won't hit the wire. Then I had her stitch the ends of the bandana over the ends of the wire like this:

That was just a straight stitch with her sewing machine. Now you see why it doesn't matter that it's off centered!

Next was the fun part; rolling it! I rolled it up really tightly.

I didn't get a picture of it, but I folded the tip of the bandana under.

Now for more sewing!

This is where she did some hand sewing with white thread. It's called a blind stitch, which should be easy to find on Google or the wonderful world of Pinterest.

Finishing it off:

Then we formed it to her head. We did have to bend it a little more for it to be tighter, and since it is made with wire we'll probably have to do that every time, but it's no big deal and it's super cute.

Tada! There's our lovely new headband made from a bandana! This came out so well and I'm really excited about it. Yay for teamwork!

Bandana Bracelet DIY

A little over a year ago, our little pomeranian named Sugar had to be put down because of her many health issues. She was 7 years old and we were very sad to have to let our sweet princess go to dog heaven.

Yep, she was pretty adorable. 

Whenever Sugar went to the groomer, she would always come back with a cute bandana around her neck. We threw away most of them after they got worn out, but a few of them were in pretty good shape. We had about 4 left after she died, and it wasn't until today that I decided to do something with them. I already had the idea to make bracelets, so that's what I did!

I took three of them and decided to braid them together. I lined them up and used a ruler to draw a straight line across them.

Then cut...

Then I tied them together at the top and taped them to my desk.

Then I started braiding...

I braided pretty loosely because I wanted the patterns to still sort of be seen. I estimated about how long I'd need it to be for my wrist and then tied it off. 

At this point I wasn't completely sure how to tie it into the bracelet form, but I ended up taking a scrap piece of fabric and using it to tie the ends together. Then I cut off some of what was left, leaving some hanging off and looking a bit like a bow.

And tada!

I personally like how it looks! And the fabric is somewhat stretchy so I was able to just slip it over my hand and onto my arm. 

Here's Sugar wearing two of the bandanas I used in this project:

She stuck her tongue out a lot.

So now I have a cute little bracelet to keep a memory of her with me. 

Tomorrow I'll post a step-by-step of making a headband out of one of these bandanas with the help of my seamstress sister.