CREATE Mental Health Week – Button Clips for Big Girls

This is a guest post in the series CREATE Mental Health. All week we will be exploring how different people use creativity to create and maintain mental health. Today’s post is by Laurel MacDougal. Laurel writes the popular crafting/homemaking/organizing/all around cool blog Ducks in a Row. Welcome, Laurel!

I have a daughter that is too old for bows and ribbons.  Yes, the day has come.  I think these button clips are a great older option for girls hair.  They are really easy to make – follow along.
You need:

Button cover kit – I used 3/4″.  The first time you buy this you need the kit.  Any other times, you can just buy the refill.
fabric scraps
craft wire
clip

OK – with your pliers, grab the shank and remove it.  (ooh, blurry picture, quick let’s move on!)

Next, cut a couple of inches of your craft wire.
and bend it in half.
Slide this wire through the bottom of the clip, and through the bottom of the button (be careful when you remove the metal shank that you notice what side it was on.  You want that side facing the clip).
Twist the wire, trim it, and smash it down so it as flat as you can get it.
Grab your fabric scrap and the button cover kit.  I only use the white plastic part.
Lay your fabric, right side down in the white thing (I’m sure it has a name, but I will call it the white thing) and put the top of the button over it.  I make sure I line it up so I get part of the fabric that I like.  I’ve done this before and ended up covering the button in the empty spaces instead of the pattern – whoops.
Trim the fabric.  If you have too much fabric, it’s hard to push the back on.  If you have too little, the edges pop out.  There is a pattern on the back of the button package.
Put the clip/bottom of the button on, fold the fabric in, and push.  There are pretty clear instructions on the back of the button package.  I can usually push hard enough with my fingers.  You can kind of feel it snap in place.  If it doesn’t, the button will just fall apart – so push until everything is nice and neat.
Remove your clip from the white thing and admire.
Cute cute cute.  We’ve done a variation on an elastic instead of a clip, and they are darling.  I’m just a tad bit clumsy using those elastics.  Just saying.
Make a slew of these – they’re fast AND cute, it’s a winning combination!  Plus, it doing projects like this energize me.  It doesn’t take much time, but it gets me going!
I had a blast preparing for this and thinking of all of you reading this!  Come pay me a visit over at Ducks in a Row.  I share my organizing tips, sewing projects, our never ending home projects, some recipes – you know, a little of this and a little of that!