a fairy headpiece how-to

The fairy headpieces I made for Little Possum's birthday party guests were popular, and several have made outings to show and tell at school. Being slightly embarrassed at the compliments I got for them, I made this tutorial to show just how easy they are to make! These could also be used as a headpiece for a little flowergirl as they are easy to colour coordinate!


Materials needed:

Tulle, ribbons, flowers (ribbon flowers -the kind that have wire attached) and some wire. I used 18 gauge florists wire.

• Shape the wire into a circle (I joined 2 lengths of wire together) in the right size for your child's head.
• Cut the tulle into 4cm wide strips. I used the pink tulle strips to wrap around the wire, plumping it up a little, leaving a length at the beginning and the end to tie off with. I didn't cut off the ends leaving 20cm or so to hang down, marking the back of the headpiece.
• Cut white (or the colour of your choice) tulle strips into lengths of 10-15 cm.
• Tie white tulle strips around the wire with a simple knot. The closer together the knots are, the fluffier and foofier the the end result will be.
• Trim the ends of the white tulle until they are as short as desired. They do not be of equal length, and may look a little more whimsical if uneven.

• Embellish the headpiece. I used ribbon flowers with their wires wrapped around the band. Where the flowers had no green leaves, I used a little green organza ribbon tied next to the flower just to add a little extra colour. For the sake of economy I only used 3 -4 flowers per headpiece at the party (as I was making 10 of them), but if I were to make only one, I'd probably use a lot more to make it really colourful.
  
  
  
• Lastly cut a couple of lengths of ribbon and tie to the band at the back, where the pink tulle ends were, just as an added embellishment. Other optional embellishments could be bells tied on with wire, or ribbon strips tied in between the tulle strips.
• Add a fairy costume or even just a singlet with tulle wings attached to the back with hook and loop fastener (eg velcro) and you have a little fairy!