I’ve mentioned our impending trip to the most magical place on earth a few times over the last few weeks and it’s finally so close that I can taste it! With our school struggles of late, this fall break couldn’t have come with better timing. I fall to my knees with gratitude over all of the love, support, encouragement and stories y’all have shared with me these last few days. Honey and I now have a plan and we have a date on the calendar to start to making headway on that plan. Since there is nothing I can do between now and then, I’m forcing myself to make it through this week of school and then to let it go. Sooooo, rather than walking around like a zombie with a pit in my stomach, I’m going to shower (why is that always the first thing to go when I’m distraught?), put on a smile and spend the next week getting ready for our trip. I’ll be blogging about my projects and fun finds non-stop for a while!!

 

Many, many months ago I began thinking of a few ways to combine some of my favorite things: Lilly, Disney, preppiness, pink, hair accessories, etc. You get the picture. I searched the internet for someone that was using Lilly fabric to make ear headbands (at the time there was nobody, now there is) and I came up with nothing. So, I then searched the internet for instructions on how to make my own. Again, I came up with nothing. And with that, I set out to make my own and ended up with the cutest ears I ever did see.

The first pair just turned out so good that I made another in a different Lilly print. And then a third. Because I had to have one in that print. And now I have a fourth in the works too. More is just more, sometimes.

Obviously these instructions are the same for whatever fabric you’d like, and you don’t need a whole lot of it. Without further ado, here’s how to make your very own custom Minnie ears…

You’ll need:
foam board
exacto knife
ear pattern (below)
headband (wide enough to hold the ears)
fabric (I found my Lilly fabric on etsy. There are numerous sellers. I just used one that had prints I liked.)
glue (spray glue + hot glue are ideal)
ribbon
a bow

As far as a pattern for the ears, mine is below. Save it to your computer and print it at full page size.

1. Trace your pattern on to the foam board. You will need TWO layers for each ear per headband. So, one headband will require 4 cut out ears. I used an exacto knife. This is the hardest part, fellow crafters. I marked top and bottom here, but I’m not sure that it matters.

2. Glue the two pieces for each ear together. The reason for needing two layers is that 1) I couldn’t find a board already thick enough, and 2) even if I had it would be the devil to cut.

3. While the glue is drying, lay out your fabric. Use your ear template to draw cutting lines slightly larger than the pattern. You want them to just be able to wrap around the outside of the ear. You will need four pieces for each headband – two for the front of the ear and two for the back of the ears.

4. Cut out your fabric. And then iron it! No sense in ruining your project with wrinkles :-)

5. Glue the fabric to the ears. I started off with good old elmers on this first pair. It took forever to dry, seeped through the fabric and was just a little hard to deal with. For subsequent pairs, I grabbed my spray glue and it made a world of difference!! Whatever glue you choose, firmly attach the fabric and smooth out any bumps or wrinkles.

Each ear should look like this now…

6. Use hot glue to glue down the sides of the fabric. I ran a thin bead down the middle of each piece of foam board and went along, burning my fingers, and pressing the fabric down.

Now it looks like this…

7. Run another bead of hot glue around the ear and adhere coordinating ribbon to cover up all the seams and mess! It’s the perfect finishing touch.

8. Glue the ears to your headband, again using the hot glue. (This is where I fell of the picture taking train and just wanted to BE DONE.)

9. You can certainly fashion a bow out of ribbon or fabric, but I had a coupon and just picked up a bunch of the cheer bows at Michael’s. I snipped the tails off at the back of the bow.

10. And, I used a blob of hot glue to attach the bow to the headband!

I cannot wait to wear these on our trip!!!
xoxo