Fancy in Life

My day job boss is having a luau-themed party this coming weekend, so I'm making myself a gigantic hair flower and making one for a co-worker so she can have a fancy flower as well.  (My flower is the gigantic one because they would expect nothing less from me, while the flowers for my co-worker are a bit more conservative.)  Hair flowers are great for sharing your fabulousness with people in the real world, and they doesn't cost a ton.  (Princess Farhana had a great blog in December for using leftover costume and craft supplies for gifts.)

For this project you will need: Mod Podge (I'm using glossy since my jar of matte is on loan), flowers, glitter, paintbrush you can ruin, dixie cups & a toothpick or cocktail sword (for stirring), hair clips, hot glue, felt or fun foam, leaves leftover from your flower stems, clothespins.

To remove the flowers from the stems, use wire cutters to cut as close to the underside of the flower as you can.

I used fine glitter on this project, but you can use whatever glitter you want.  The fine glitter gives a delicate shimmer, where thick glitter is a bit more aggressive in its glitziness.

Pour enough Mod Podge in your dixie cup to coat the bottom.  (You may see some pink in the bottom of the cup.  That's because I did a coat of glitter on parts of my flower before snapping the photo.  This makes it easier to see how much Mod Podge I actually used each time I mixed up the glitter goo.)

Pour enough glitter onto the Mod Podge to cover it well.  (You know about heaping spoons in cooking?  You want a heaping cover of glitter on your Mod Podge.)  I used three kinds of glitter for variety and better texture: hot pink cosmetic glitter, fine pink glitter, and fine iridescent glitter.  You can mix glitter shades and sizes.

Use your toothpick or cocktail sword to mix up the glitter and Mod Podge until fully blended.

It's handy to have dixie cups on hand for mixing small quantities of paint or glitter.  They make clean up very easy.

I use toothpicks or cocktail swords all the time for mixing paint and glitter, and for rhinestoning.




Paint each petal of your flower with the glitter mixture.  Be sure to work in a circular fashion so it doesn't look wonky if you run out of a particular shade of glitter before you finish the flower.  You can paint the edge or the entire petal.

The Mod Podge will stiffen the petals a bit.

I used a cheap, crappy paintbrush because the glitter doesn't always wash out completely.

Cut felt or fun foam circles to cover the green frame on the back of your flower.  I used felt for the smaller flowers and thick fun foam for the large flower.  This gives you a place to attach the clip and stabilizes the flower so it doesn't flop around on your head.

Hot glue leftover leaves to the top of the circle.  You don't have to cover the circle completely.  It's okay if the leaves peep out from behind the completed flower.



Cut a piece of grosgrain ribbon to cover the inside back of your clip.   For the small flowers I used pin curl clips.  The metal gets really hot from the glue.  The grosgrain ribbon keeps you from burning yourself as badly with the hot glue, and it prevents the clip from getting glued shut. 

With the larger flower, I used a larger clip with teeth.  Since I didn't use a metal clip for that one and since it had teeth, I had to position the grosgrain ribbon at the inside top and bottom of the clip so the teeth were free.  This will make it more secure.







With the flower face down and the clip on the felt circle facing you, glue the circle to the back of the flower.  I had to glue some of the backs of the petals of the large flower to the circle to make it more secure.  Use clothespins as needed to pinch the felt circle to the flower while the glue cools.

Double check everything you've hot glued and touch up as needed.  Use a piece of tape or lint roller to get rid of any glue strings.




Here is my completed flower, secured above a simple bun.  This flower is bigger than my head but it's stable and pretty.   I initially planned to teach my co-worker how to make her own hair flower, but I'm presently at home with a fever.  So I don't have idle hands at home, I'll use the same glitter treatment on the hair flowers for my co-worker.

There are great sales on last season's flowers at many chain stores that sell silk flowers.  I bought the giant flower for $5, and spent under $2 each for the two smaller flowers.


Make these simple and inexpensive flowers to share with friends, or forward the link to this blog to them so they can learn to do it themselves.