Hair Clips Board - a tutorial

Hey ya'll...shoot it's been a loooong time since I posted!  Yet I looked and noticed I'm averaging about 1,000 pageviews per day.  WOW!  I'm not sure how that happened but you won't hear me complaining!

Sorry for being so distant lately!  Here's what I've been up to...

Christmas!

I made a felt playhouse for my nieces - tutorial will be up here eventually (complete with PDF patterns...give me some time to get it all together, but get excited in the meantime!).

I started a new job too!  It's a really great opportunity but also super stressful and oh P.S., I have a tendency to get a little anxious.  Sooo...that has been a bit draining for me over the last month.  But don't fear...I'm still crafting when I'm not completely worn out. 

Here's my most recent projects and one of my favorites so far!  My niece, Maggie, just turned 4...and what else could a big girl want other than???

A hair clip holder! 

I used to have something similar when I was her age and I loved it!  I had a hair clip obsession (my friend Amanda had the most amazing hair clip collection EVER.  I tried to explain this to Mr. JG the other day and how awesome it was...he wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped).

Anyway...Maggie seemed to like it (well as much as a 4 year old really likes anything...tough crowd at that age).

And, I even took a few pictures along the way to create a tutorial...so here goes!

Materials:

Wood Trim - Mine is about 5" wide; I get it unfinished at home depot for $2.98 a ft (this is the same board I used for all of my birthday boards) - you'll need around 1 ft for this job (I used 14" to be exact)

Spray Paint (orange for mine; you can also use acrylic paint but I love spray paint because it's really quick and easy, no brush marks, and leaves a nice shiny finish)

White vinyl & a Cricut to cut the letters (no cricut?  no worries - consider buying pre-cut letters, hand painting them on yourself, or using stencils and paint to do the job)

A couple of cute ribbons

Little saw tooth hangers and extra little bitty nails (there's always one or two extra in a saw tooth hanger package and I used these for all of the birthday boards I sold so I had quite a few extra that I just used)

Glue (Aleene's Tacky Glue is my fav!  At Maggie's birthday party my sister made the mistake of asking me when to use hot glue v. white glue...she got a 10 minute long answer)

You'll also need - a hammer, a lighter/match, a place to spray paint where you won't accidently paint something like carpet (I spray paint outside on a tarp that just lives on our back patio)

Okay - got everything together?  Here we go!

Wait, hold on a minute....just a note about cutting your trim piece.  At Home Depot they sell this stuff by the yard, so you can just grab a long piece then walk up to that little cutting cart in the aisle and cut it down to size.  I don't do this and don't recommend it if you can help it.  Those hand saws at Home Depot suck!  They have been on that cart cutting wood since the dawn of time and are never sharpened so you're edges end up looking crappy.  I always buy a slightly longer piece and then take it home and cut it with my chop saw.  If you have a chop saw - do this...your edges will look much nicer and you'll be glad you did!

(1) Spray paint your board!  Give it a few coats and hit it from all angles so you get all the edges.

(2) Cut out your vinyl letters on your cricut and apply them to your board.  Or hand paint your letters if you don't have the cricut option.  For my trim piece, my larger letters were 3" tall and my smaller letters were 1" tall.  Oh and you're basically just flipping the trim upside down for this project so the part that would normally be the decorative top edge of your trim becomes the bottom decorative edge of your hair clip holder.

(3) Cut 3 lengths of ribbon (mine were all about 2ft long) - cut them all the same length.  Then, using your match/lighter, run the cut edges of your ribbon barely over the flame to sort of seal them in so they won't fray.  I usually light a candle then hold mine over the candle flame.  You have to be careful (especially with a light colored ribbon) not to singe the ribbon by getting it too close to the heat.

(4)  Glue the ribbon to the back of the board.  I measured my board, found the center first, and glued my center ribbon down.  Then I just glued the other two ribbons down equi-distant from the center.

(5)  Once your glue is dry, nail little nails through the ribbon into the back of the board.  Make sure your nails aren't too long and they won't poke through the other side (it takes really small nails).  These will help hold your ribbons on even if your glue gives up.  I never trust glue.

(6)  Nail on your sawtooth hangers.

(7) Add your hair clips and hang 'er up!  All done!

Let me know if you make one - I'd love to see how yours comes out!